


my body is not their bed

by deathsweetqueen



Series: gods of carnage [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Gender Issues, Genderswap, HYDRA Violence, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Non-Conventional Soulmate Bond, Pansexual Tony Stark, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Queerplatonic Relationships, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Recovering, Tony Stark is Kidnapped by HYDRA, Torture, child kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:21:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 137,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22876234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: In 1995, the Engineer and the Winter Soldier escape HYDRA and end up, bleeding, on Peggy Carter's doorstep.This is their journeyafter. This is the story of their victory march.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark
Series: gods of carnage [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1370686
Comments: 359
Kudos: 722
Collections: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> After almost a year, I have finally finished the sequel!
> 
> This is written for the free square (A3) for the Tony Stark Bingo 2020, and the "you owe me" square (O3) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019-2020.
> 
> The title is from one of Rupi Kaur's poems in The Sun and Her Flowers.

**1995**

Peggy stares at them, and then nods, gravely.

“You’d better come in then,” she says, quietly, and moves aside to let them past

Antonia bites her lip and drags Yasha inside, keeping his weight balanced over her shoulders.

Peggy pulls out a chair for Yasha to sink onto as soon as they emerge into the living room, which looks remarkably different yet particularly the same as what she remembered from 1986. Her teeth dig into her lower lip when her eyes drag over the spot where she laid there on the ground, thinking she would bleed out onto the carpet.

“Thank you,” she tells Peggy, her head cast down.

Peggy softens. “You’re welcome.”

She grips Yasha’s shoulder, running her thumb over his cheekbone.

“Is he going to be okay?” Peggy asks, suspiciously.

“He was shot,” she explains, and Peggy’s face betrays her surprise. “But I got the bullet out on our way here.” she reassures. “He’s healing, but it’s a painful healing.”

Yasha’s grip on one of her hands tightens, as he grunts a little, shifting on his seat.

Antonia glances at Peggy. “You know who we are,” she sighs.

She must know who they are – no one like Peggy Carter allows two strangers that tried to kill her once into her home without some sort of agenda.

Peggy nods. “I do.” Her brow furrows. “You are a dead ringer for your parents. When I saw your face in 1986, I didn’t believe it, of course. We’ve all been operating under the assumption you were dead, or if you weren’t, we’d never see you again.”

 _We, as in my parents. I have parents_ , she realises. _A mother and father that are alive, that have presumably mourned my absence and potentially my death._

She takes a deep breath.

 _Howard and Maria Stark are my parents_.

It doesn’t sit well enough with her, not yet, at least.

Peggy’s lips twitch. “Seems you’re much more resilient that I could’ve ever imagined.”

Antonia looks away, when she feels the terrible rush of blood hitting her skin.

Peggy’s eyes turn on Yasha. “And you, Barnes, you don’t look a day over twenty-eight,” she says, almost awed. “Of all the people I’d ever thought would end up on my doorstep, you weren’t one of them, I can say that for sure.”

Yasha looks up at her, dazed. “I… I don’t remember you,” he says, roughly. He looks down at his feet. “I’m sorry,” he offers.

Peggy’s face goes taut. “Don’t be. We should probably have a conversation about this.” She looks in the direction of the door. “I’ll get you some water to drink,” she says, her voice clipped, and walks off, leaving them alone in the living room.

Antonia looks down at him. “How do you feel?” she asks, concerned.

Yasha musters a shaky smile for her and pats her hand. “I’ll be fine,” he reassures. “Don’t worry about me.”

Antonia rolls her eyes. “I always worry about you.”

His smile falls, abruptly, and he squeezes her limp, trembling fingers. “I know,” he says, solemnly. He shoots a look at the space Peggy was just occupying. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that she knows who we are.”

Antonia grimaces. “I’m hoping she might be tempted to treat us kinder, knowing who we are,” she explains.

Yasha looks up at her, his eyes dark. “I am not Bucky Barnes anymore, _malina moya_ ,” he points out. “And you are not Antonia Stark, not the Antonia Stark that she and the rest of them will want. We must be careful, even with her. HYDRA did not fear her wrath for any small reason.”

Antonia nods, biting her lower lip.

There’s the sound of footsteps behind them, and both tilt their heads, just in time to see a little blonde girl, not more than ten years old, stumble in through the arch.

The girl stares at them, her brow furrowed a little.

“Hello,” Antonia offers, quietly.

The girl cocks her head. “Are you one of my Auntie’s friends?”

Antonia frowns. “Yes, I… suppose I am.”

“Oh.” The girl bravely walks over to her. “My name’s Sharon. What’s your name?”

The Engineer immediately opens her mouth to give a fake name, but it doesn’t quite form on her tongue. “Antonia. My name is Antonia.” She tries it out.

 _Yes,_ she decides. _My name is Antonia._

“Oh, that’s a nice name. What does it mean?” Sharon demands, staring up at her with blue eyes as big and round as the moon.

Antonia frowns to herself. “You know, I don’t know,” she muses. “What does Sharon mean?”

Sharon climbs onto the table beside Yasha, without a moment’s hesitation, not even managing that sliver of instinctual fear or discomfort that a child would have at having her home invaded by strangers. Yasha himself looks more terrified of Sharon than Sharon does of him (she shouldn’t be as amused as she is at the thought of the great Winter Soldier being absolutely scared witless of this little girl that barely comes up to his hip, but she is).

“I dunno,” Sharon chatters, her legs swinging off the table. “My auntie says it has something to do with the Old Testament, like some field near Israel, but I’ve never managed to get a straight answer out of her.”

She says it, with a deliberate roll of her eyes, so thoroughly exasperated at the foibles within adults, that it makes Antonia want to laugh (she hasn’t laughed in so long, she doesn’t even know what it will sound like from her).

“So,” Sharon drawls. “Why are you here? Are you doing some super-secret spy business?” she asks, curiously, practically vibrating with the excitement she was trying to hide.

“If they were here to do some super-secret spy business, they certainly wouldn’t be telling you, now, would they, Sharon?” Peggy asks, briskly, striding back into the living room and passing out two glasses of water to Antonia and Yasha.

“So, they _are_ here for super-secret spy business,” Sharon pushes, lifting her chin defiantly and meeting Peggy’s eyes.

Had Antonia done that at her age, she wouldn’t have been able to move for a week.

Peggy rolls her eyes. “Off with you, now. The big people need to talk.”

Sharon eyes Antonia. “She doesn’t look so big,” she says, belligerently.

Antonia wraps her arms around herself, offended at the declaration. She catches Yasha’s warm, bright grin just a mere moment before it fades, and she narrows her eyes at him.

 _I saw that_.

Peggy raises an eyebrow, matching Sharon eye for eye, until Sharon relents, stalking out, with a huff and her hands on her hips.

“Fine, I didn’t want to be a part of your dumb spy business, anyway,” she retorts, on her way out, glowering at the lot of them.

Peggy sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry about that,” she murmurs. “Kids,” like that explains everything.

Antonia’s smile is small, taut. She shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

Peggy looks at her, unbearably soft. “Yes, I can imagine.” She clears her throat.

“I won’t hurt her; _we_ won’t hurt her,” Antonia blurts out, looking down at her feet before meeting Peggy’s eyes with resolve. “I swear to you.”

Peggy reaches out and takes Antonia’s hand, threading her fingers through hers. Peggy’s fingers are wrinkled, raw, but firm under hers, and it makes her lungs squeeze tight – she wonders if this is what having a mother means.

“I know you won’t,” she says, gently. “You wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep otherwise. Plus,” she trails her fingers down the side of her thigh, tapping long nails against the solid casing of a gun. “I think I could take you.”

Antonia musters a shaky smile, and nods.

“Now,” Peggy shoots Yasha a heavy look. “I don’t mean to push you, but-”

“You want to know… I would imagine, everything,” Antonia answers for her.

Peggy shrugs. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” she says, dryly. “Considering you died in 1945,” she tells Yasha. She turns her eyes on Antonia. “and you went missing a week after you were born. The two of you shouldn’t be alive, let alone together. How did that happen?”

“HYDRA,” Antonia answers.

The silence in the air is stifling.

“That’s not possible,” Peggy says, roughly, glancing at Yasha. “HYDRA died with the Red Skull.”

“No, they didn’t,” Antonia tells her, solemnly.

“But… but…” Peggy takes a sharp breath, running her hand over her face, as sorrow and disbelief lines her face, making her look much older than she was. “I was _there_ ,” she insists. “I was there when the Red Skull died, when we took Arnim Zola into custody. HYDRA withered away after that.”

“No, they didn’t,” Yasha says, his voice dragging like a chain on gravel.

Peggy stares at him like a ghost. “How are you even alive, Barnes?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion that Antonia doesn’t quite know to define or quantify. “You died. You fell from a train in the Alps. No one could’ve survived that fall.”

Yasha’s smile is gritty, all teeth and bite. “Did I fall?” he asks, coldly. “I don’t remember.”

Peggy falters. “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

“Carter, beyond the mission that we were given to kill you in 1986, which is flimsy at best, I have no fucking clue who you are,” Yasha says, bluntly, and for the first time, Antonia watches him meet someone’s eyes without flinching, like nothing can touch him, like he wouldn’t let anything touch him or her ever again.

She’s never loved him more than in this moment: her beautiful, brave warrior. 

Peggy looks pale and numb, like she could use a stiff drink, and she runs her hand through her hair, mussing up her nice, even curls, which fills Antonia with a strange sort of grief at the loss. She sinks into a chair in front of Antonia and Yasha and rubs her hand over her face.

“HYDRA survived, then,” she rasps.

Antonia feels terribly sorry for her, this woman whose bridges are crumbling with every word they say to her, everything that she had once unequivocally thought of as truth.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m sorry,” she thinks to say a moment later.

Apologising doesn’t come so easily to her.

Peggy shakes his head, and if Antonia peers closely, she can see that the woman’s eyelashes are wet. When she looks up at them, though, her stare is overwhelmingly determined, like she’s already made a decision to see this awful moment through and she won’t let anything or anyone sway her.

Antonia has this woman’s name, and she understands why; she abruptly hates that HYDRA stole any chance she had to know her better as a child, when she could’ve used and learnt from her strength.

_Fucking HYDRA._

Peggy’s gaze rounds on Yasha, and Antonia goes taut, so smoothly that no one would’ve thought she was on edge over anything.

“How did _you_ end up with them?” she demands.

Yasha shrugs. “You’d know better than I do,” he replies, grimly. His brow furrows. “How _did_ I die in your version of events?” he asks, curiously.

“You were on a train, with Steve and the other Howling Commandos,” Peggy begins. She pauses. “Steve, do you remember Steve?” she asks, hopefully.

The tendon in Yasha’s jaw clenches hard. “No,” he replies. He frowns. “At least, I don’t think I do.” He looks at Antonia. “Do I remember Steve?” he asks her.

Antonia rests her hand on his hair, just over the crown of his skull, and feels him lean into the touch, slackening just as much as his instincts will allow in front of a woman that he still perceives as a threat to her (because he so easily makes her the pith and core of his existence, and he’d always put himself between her and anything that was stupid enough to come at her – silly man, because she’d do the same thing, without question, for him and he hates it) and to him.

“You’ve never mentioned Steve Rogers to me,” she says, slowly. “But I do think there’s something inside you that remembers him. Every time that you’ve… reacted badly,” she hedges. “Steve Rogers has been involved in some way.”

“I don’t…” Yasha swallows, visibly. “I don’t remember him,” he insists. He turns to Peggy. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

Peggy nods, a jerky, stuttering motion that betrays the wealth and whirlwind of emotion she must be feeling in this moment. She clears her throat, but her voice is still thick when she speaks.

She is a very brave woman, this one.

“Anyway,” Peggy says, roughly. “You were chasing Zola. Do you know Zola is?” she asks, wearily.

“Arnim Zola, HYDRA’s lead scientist during the Second World War. He was captured by Allied forces in 1945 and reintegrated into SHIELD’s chain of command. He died in 1972,” Antonia recites like she’s reading a paragraph in a history textbook.

Under her hand, Yasha goes taut.

“The man with the glasses,” he says, dully, and he shakes a little.

Antonia gives him a sharp look. “You remember him?” she asks, surprised.

Yasha curls in on himself. “He hurt me,” he says, almost absentmindedly. “I remember, he hurt me.” He looks down at his metal prosthetic and raises it. “I think he gave me this.”

Antonia has never met the man, but if she saw Arnim Zola in front of him in this moment, she thinks she would pop his eyes out of his skull and make him eat them.

She threads their fingers together and he squeezes them tight, his palm clammy.

“The chase didn’t end well,” Peggy says, soberly. “HYDRA, they had these weapons. They did a lot of damage, and you fell out of the train. Steve tried to grab you, but the railing broke away and you fell.” She looks away, a strange flush to her neck. “We didn’t have time to go looking for your body.”

Antonia grits her teeth. If only they had gone for his body, Yasha may have been spared the torment he was dealt; perhaps, both of their lives would’ve been better, without a soulmark on an asset to prompt HYDRA’s kidnapping of her as well.

She crosses her arms over her chest and gives Peggy a flat look.

“I’m sorry,” the woman blurts out, giving Yasha and her an aching look. “If I had insisted, if I just _forced_ it…” she shakes her head, swallowing visibly. “Maybe your lives would’ve been different. _I_ helped with that.”

The words, forgiveness, are too big and too heavy to leave her tongue.

She thanks the world, any deity above, for Yasha.

“It’s not your fault,” Yasha says, quietly.

Peggy grits her teeth, the tendon in her jaw clenching under the thin, wrinkled veneer of skin. “I was there, you know,” she says, grimly. “The day that you were born.”

Antonia jolts at that; she doesn’t like to linger over such dangerous things, like there’s something lacking in her, like the Antonia she is now, today, after everything, isn’t the Antonia she should be, like she’s somehow a lesser version of a whole she was denied. 

“It was a long labour for your mother, Maria,” Peggy muses, somehow missing the taut, thick tension that has overwhelmed her. “But she was brave. She didn’t take an epidural, not even when the nurses, when all of us begged her, not because she thought it made her weak, but because, well, honestly, it was the only child she was ever going to have and she wanted to feel everything.”

The air is thick, heavy, until she can’t breathe anymore.

“Maria had a lot of difficulty with pregnancies,” Peggy explains at presumably the ashen look on Antonia’s face (for all of her reputation, Peggy doesn’t read her well). “She wasn’t happy-happy when she found out; no, that came later when she was sure she wasn’t going to lose you. You should’ve seen her face, when you were born, and they put you in her arms for the first time. She didn’t want to let you go, no matter what we said. Finally, we convinced her, but that was the last time she ever saw you.”

Antonia flinches and looks away.

“Sometimes, I wish I had given her a couple more minutes with you; maybe that would’ve made things easier,” Peggy muses, lost in her nostalgia. “But it was a blow, nonetheless. Howard, your father, he doesn’t know how to deal with things, not well, at least. Losing you, although he’d never say it to anyone’s face, pretty much destroyed him. Destroyed both of them, actually. They’ll be glad to know that you’re alive, that you’re safe now.”

“You can’t tell them,” Antonia blurts out, her hands shaking.

Yasha looks on, concerned, but she shakes her head at the visible look of surprise Peggy gives her.

“I’m not…” she sighs and lets her body fall loose. “I’m not their Antonia, not really,” she admits, reluctantly.

Peggy gives her an unbearably soft look (she wonders if Maria would look at her like this, if it’s universal for all mothers).

“But you are, darling. Whoever you are today is the Antonia you were always supposed to be. You are who are you are,” she insists, gently.

Antonia shakes her head, though. “I’m not. I’m not.”

Peggy’s brow furrows a little, like she wants to continue arguing the point, but she relents just the same, clearly spotting the terrified, haunted look in Antonia’s eyes.

Yasha’s hand tighten around hers. She clutches at him for all that it’s worth.

“Anyway, a week later, Steve infiltrates the base where the Red Skull is hiding. The Red Skull dies, and Steve puts a plane full of bombs into the ice to save the world. We never recovered his body,” Peggy says, roughly.

Antonia thinks she loved Steve, and it was a good, fierce love, one that lingers with the woman even after fifty years.

There’s a beat of silence and Yasha squeezes her hand, his voice low and halting.

“Did he suffer?” he asks, solemnly, and Antonia thinks that even if he doesn’t know this Steve, doesn’t remember what it is to be the Bucky Barnes that loves Steve Rogers, the world drags him sideways to think that Steve died, alone and sad and in pain. 

Peggy flinches. “I don’t think so,” she says. “But I don’t… I don’t…” she swallows, compulsively. “We spoke, on the radio, as he went down. The radio just… it just went out. I don’t… I don’t know anything more, I’m sorry.”

Yasha nods, because that’s all he can do.

Peggy recovers, slowly but solidly, and splays out thin fingers over her pantsuit.

“How did you…how did you end up with HYDRA?” she asks, pausing to close her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Yasha says, sincerely. “I have memories, of the snow, of them dragging me away, of a small man in glasses calling me the New Fist of HYDRA. My arm…” he stares down at his prosthetic. “I don’t think it was this bad when they found me. I think they cut more off,” he muses, almost as if it’s quite mundane to talk about vicious, non-consensual amputation. “I fought them, initially, and then…” he shrugs. “I just stopped fighting. I don’t remember much after that. There were a lot of missions, a lot of cryo, a lot of the chair. That was my life.”

“Cryo?” Peggy looks between them.

Yasha looks uncertain, almost hesitant and ashamed, and Antonia reaches for him, bracing her hand on the back of his neck and squeezing until she feels his tendons slacken.

“There is a chamber,” she begins, haltingly, for him. “There _was_ a chamber, one they kept him inside, more when I was younger, but often until a few years ago.”

Peggy frowns. “For what purpose.”

“Stasis,” Antonia answers, thinly, even if it means so much more to her, that stricken, defeated look Yasha would get when they dragged him to that tomb. “It keeps us… malleable.”

Peggy drags her hand over her face. “Fucking barbarians,” she mutters.

Antonia snorts. “I think that’s an understatement.”

“And the chair?” Peggy sounds almost terrified to even ask, knowing what the precedent of HYDRA’s care already is.

Antonia’s jaw locks the moment that Yasha shakes his head, wildly.

“No,” she answers, fiercely. “No.”

Peggy gives her a gentle look. “Okay. You don’t need to tell me.”

Antonia breathes deep, the knot in her chest loosening in relief. She runs her thumb back and forth over the tight tendon in Yasha’s throat.

Peggy’s hands fold in her lap. “Am I correct in assuming they had you kill people?” she asks, her voice not faltering the slightest.

Antonia and Yasha exchange a look – this is why leverage is always useful; this is where good will fades and common sense lingers; this is where the reprieve they’d hoped for crumples, because no one, especially not a woman such as Peggy Carter, looks at two people who killed for such a monumental beast like HYDRA and believes them to be mild things.

They are killers, and that can’t be changed.

“Yes,” she answers and casts her eyes down, hoping to look repentant – it’s an odd feeling on her; she isn’t even sure if she feels it, if she’s just become very good at pretending. “That’s what they made us do.”

There isn’t a fraction of a lie in those words – they killed, and HYDRA made them kill. It’s as true as the sky is blue, and the grass is green.

“I’m so sorry.”

Antonia meets Peggy’s eyes without fear. “What are you going to do with us?” she asks, quietly.

Peggy frowns. “What are you talking about?”

Antonia raises an eyebrow, sceptically. “We just confessed to being the perpetrators of dozens, if not hundreds and thousands, of assassinations while we were with HYDRA. Which prison are you taking us to?”

Peggy makes a noise of confusion. “Antonia,” she begins so gently that Antonia thinks her eyes will burn. “It’s not that blame that falls on the two of you.” She looks at Yasha then. “I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, but Steve would hate to see you like this, thinking you’re at fault for all the awful things they did to you to _make_ you do hurt people. I knew you before you were the Winter Soldier, Barnes, and you were a good man. What HYDRA did to you doesn’t change that.” Her eyes dart back to Antonia. “And you? Were you protecting yourself, protecting him?”

Antonia doesn’t hesitate to nod.

“Why would I ever put you both in a prison, then?” Peggy scoffs, as if it’s the silliest thing she’s heard in years. She shakes her head, reaches over bravely and pats Antonia’s hand. “Don’t worry, darling, we’ll figure something out.”

She doesn’t know why it is so, but she thinks she’d believe anything that Peggy Carter said to her.

* * *

Peggy sips at her tea, staring up at them through fine, dark eyelashes.

“How did you end up with them, Antonia?” she murmurs into the steam that rises from the cup. “The last any of us saw of you was in the post-natal unit you were being kept inside.”

Antonia startles. “Post-natal unit?”

Peggy nods. “You were a little premature. You had trouble breathing properly, so they put you in an incubator, but the doctors had given your mother permission to take you home, just the night before you went missing.”

“It was me,” Yasha says, dully, and Antonia wouldn’t need to read minds to know exactly what he was thinking.

Peggy’s expression flickers with surprise. “What do you mean?” she asks, concerned.

“I took her from the hospital,” Yasha says and meets Peggy’s gaze without an inch of fear.

“How-how is that even possible? How did you even know she was there? What did HYDRA want with a baby?” Peggy demands, her mouth thinning into a hard line.

Yasha looks at her, then, and she nods, knowing what he’s asking of her. She doesn’t hesitate to roll up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the _James Buchanan Barnes_ inked across her pulse point in a neat, thin lettering, while Yasha does the same, showing Peggy the _Antonia Margaret Stark_ that is imprinted on his wrist.

Peggy stares at the soulmarks for a moment, her complexion sallow, before she shakes her head, slumping down in her seat.

“Of all the things, of all the people, it had to be the two of you,” she murmurs, her voice droll. Her eyes bore into them. “I wouldn’t have expected this, but I’m glad.”

“You’re _glad_?” Yasha says, incredulously.

Peggy nods and cracks her knuckles. “The two of you have been through so much, seen so much, forced to do so much. I’m glad you had each other. I’m glad you can be here, together, even if it didn’t make your lives any easier,” she says, solemnly. She gives them a little knowing, satisfied smile, staring up at them through thick, dark eyelashes. “Besides, I am your godmother, Antonia. I couldn’t have wanted a better soulmate for you.” Her eyes tilt towards Yasha. “This won’t mean much to you, but I knew James Buchanan Barnes and he was a good man, and I know any part of him will treat my goddaughter well.”

Antonia can’t help that blush that hurtles to her cheeks and looks away, while Yasha looks at Peggy like he’s never imagined such a being exists in the world – Antonia’s beginning to realise the same; she’s just a little better at keeping such things, like awe and admiration, close to her chest.

“So, I take it you’ve been with HYDRA since 1970, then?” Peggy guesses.

Antonia nods. “But for a brief period of time before this when we were rented out to the Soviets.”

Peggy raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Antonia dwells on the thought before her fingers are fishing inside her clothes for the floppy disk, only hesitating a fraction of a moment before she’s slipping it inside Peggy’s lined palm.

Peggy stares down at it, her brow furrowed. “What is this?” she asks, her voice lilting upwards.

“Leverage,” Antonia replies, keeping her voice mild.

Peggy narrows her eyes. “Why would you need leverage?”

Antonia gives her a soft, pitying look. “You are very kind, Peggy, and don’t think we don’t appreciate you willing to hear us out,” she tells her. “But we would be very foolish if we assumed everyone else is just as kind as you. We’re responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I can’t imagine the world, especially SHIELD, America, willing to let us fade into anonymity, do you?”

Peggy stares down at the floppy disk and flips it between her figures, her expression unfathomable. “So, you brought this, just in case you’d need to buy your safety.”

Antonia nods, sharply.

Peggy sighs and looks almost a decade older than they know her to be, tipping her head back. “It’s smart,” she concedes. “I believe you, and I want you to be safe, to heal, after everything that you’ve been through, but I can’t promise that my colleagues will want the same things that I do.” Her face twists in disgust.

Antonia shrugs. “Don’t feel bad.” She looks down at Yasha. “We assumed this would happen.”

Peggy gives her a fierce look, then, cutting right down to her flesh and bone and sinew. “I’m going to take care of you,” she says, sharply. “Don’t ever think otherwise. I won’t let anyone hurt you, either of you.” Her eyes drift to Yasha. “And if anyone’s brave enough to try and get past me to get to you,” her face sets in resolve and her smile is all teeth – Antonia is keenly aware of why HYDRA was absolutely terrified of this woman (she thinks she would be terrified as well, if she were capable of fear anymore). “Well, let them come,” she says, satisfied.

Her words are so absolute, so undeniable that Antonia finds herself defying every instinct she has and believing in her immediately.

“You’re sure?” she asks, tentatively. In the corner of her peripheral vision, she sees Yasha uncurling his long fingers against his thigh, like he doesn’t know whether to slacken or to reach for his weapon just in case (the mercy of others is so fickle sometimes; Peggy Carter could turn into an enemy so quickly, particularly when the price to protect them becomes too much for her to bear). “This may not end well for you.”

Peggy clucks her tongue, reaching across the expanse to grip Antonia’s hand with a fierce hold that she would never have expected from a woman of Peggy’s age.

“Let them come,” she promises.

* * *

“Well?” Peggy declares, grandly. “What do you think?” she asks, making a sweeping gesture with her arms outstretched.

Antonia looks around at the home Peggy has made for them. “It’s nice,” she says, lamely.

Peggy’s smile abruptly falls, and she pouts – it looks frankly adorable on the old woman, much to Antonia’s amusement. “You hate it,” she says, bluntly.

Antonia panics. “I don’t,” she insists. “ _We_ don’t.” She turns to Yasha, giving him a stern, warning look. “Do we?”

Yasha gives Peggy a warm, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth smile. “It is very nice,” he says, politely. “I am sure we will be very happy here.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “If you don’t like it, we can find something else for you two.”

“It’s honestly very lovely,” Antonia reassures. “And we are very grateful to you for making this possible for us.”

“But…” Peggy pushes, shamelessly, folding her thin, bony arms over her chest, eyes boring into them.

Antonia gives her a small smile and shrugs. “I have never had a home like this,” she confesses. She looks at Yasha, whose dark pupils bloom. “And you don’t remember yours.”

Yasha remains still. Even now, he doesn’t like to acknowledge James Barnes, the man that existed before him.

“This is… this is too much for us,” she tells Peggy.

Peggy is quiet and achingly sad, judging by the maudlin look they’re gifted with. “You deserve this, Antonia,” she says, gently.

Antonia remembers all the people she’s killed, all the widows and widowers and orphans she’s made, all those parents who buried their children because of her and her talent for death, and she thinks: _no, I don’t deserve this. I deserve many things, but not this and not from you, Peggy._

Instead, she flashes a warm grin at her godmother (it becomes easier to say, more palatable, the more she repeats it). “If you say so,” she says, shyly.

Peggy gives her a soft, sad look, and Antonia thinks she must know all the awful things she thinks about herself – Peggy seems like the type of person who could strip someone of all their pith and read their fill for leisure.

“I just… I want you, _both of you_ , to have a life here,” she explains, her voice growing weary.

Antonia shrugs. “You have given us more than a life,” she retorts, smoothing her hair back in a nervous gesture. “I am so very grateful.”

Peggy’s eyes cloud with worry, but she nods nonetheless. She shoots Yasha a wary look (she gets this look in her eyes, like she’s remembering something- _someone_ else, like she’s remembering Bucky Barnes in Yasha’s place and she finds him wanting, but Antonia thinks Bucky Barnes is dead and only Yasha remains in his place, and she can’t bring herself to regret that a good man had to die for her to have her soulmate, as monstrous as it sounds).

Peggy clears her throat. “I wonder what’s taking Sharon that long outside. Why don’t I go and check on her, hm?” She musters a smile for the two of them before sauntering out of the room, leaving Antonia and Yasha alone in what is to be their home.

 _Home_.

She can hardly believe such a thing exists.

Surely, HYDRA is their home, even if they would burn it to the ground if only to make breathing a little easier.

She turns to Yasha, who is busy staring into the depths of the wall, content to ignore the world around him, and she reaches for him.

“What do you think?” she asks, carefully, her voice low and halting.

Yasha’s gaze snaps to her, boring inside until he can see whatever’s inside her that she would never tell him, prodding at all of her masks and walls until he brings them down, as easy as a rainshower.

“You like it here,” he reasons, gently. “Or you would, if we lived here.”

She looks around at the bare walls, no furniture, no warmth, not much of a home yet, but perhaps they could build one within its structure, something for themselves, where the violence and hate can’t touch them so easily.

Is it shameful to say that she wants this, she wants all of this that was denied to her and him, even if all she wants is to know if she’ll survive as this girl, as Antonia Stark? It may not fit them, it may never be whatever she thinks it will be, but it would be a choice, a choice that the two of them will make together, for them and not for anyone else and not in fear of anyone else – but, at the very least, they would have tried.

But she will wait for him.

She will _always_ wait for him.

She swallows compulsively. “If you don’t want this, Yasha, we won’t stay here,” she insists.

He’s lost so much more than she has – she won’t drag him into anything against his wishes.

Yasha exhales and walks over to her, his hands settling on her shoulders. In that moment, her knees feel like stone and she sways and he catches her as he always does, broad, deft hand threading through her hair until she settles against his collarbone.

“I would give you anything in this world that I can,” he rumbles in her ear. “And if you want this, this house, this life, I will give it to you.”

She looks up, her eyes wide and hungry, as she bites her lip. “What do _you_ want, Yasha?”

Yasha’s brow furrows. “I want… nothing in particular,” he replies, heavily. “I want… I want to know who James Barnes was, but I don’t think the answer will ever satisfy me. It won’t ever make me him, and I don’t particularly want to be him anymore. James Barnes is dead, and I’ve taken his place. His home is not my home, and his family is not my family. _You_ are my home; _you_ are my family, so whatever you want in this life, I will share it with you.”

“But is that what you _want_?” she demands, desperately. “I won’t force you to live _my_ life, Yasha. You _have_ to tell me if you want something different.”

The lines around Yasha’s eyes soften and his grip around her shoulders tighten.

“I would go anywhere with you, even here,” he says, gently, and presses his mouth to hers.

“You promise?” she whispers against him. “You promise you’re okay with this, this is something you can live with, this is something you won’t resent me for.” Her fingers tighten in his shirt. “You promise?”

“ _Malina moya_ ,” he murmurs, pulling her close. “I promise.”

She throws her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.

“Let’s make this our home,” he rumbles in her ear. “I want a home with you.”

She nods, not trusting herself not to let some pathetic little noise out of her if she opened her mouth.

“I want a home with you too.”


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "genderswap" square (K3) of the Tony Stark Bingo 2020.

Sharon breaks their moment, rushing inside with a giant cardboard box cradled against her chest. She makes a face as soon as she sees them.

“Ew, were you two kissing?” she asks, disgusted.

Antonia laughs, too amused by the way the girl’s face twists up to do much else.

“It’s what adults do with their soulmates,” she says, kindly.

Her lungs squeeze tight as saying those words aloud, remembering old constraints and the wounds that would’ve followed if she’d been so lax in front of the commander. But then, she takes a deep breath and her lungs expand with air and she realises that no one can touch her now, no one can do anything to her that she wouldn’t want – she’d kill them first.

The smile comes without her even knowing, wide and guileless and unfeigned.

He is the other half of her, and she is the other half of him – why should she shy away from something that is so true, so undeniable, so absolute?

Sharon grimaces. “I haven’t met my soulmate yet,” she explains and brandishes her bare wrist at the two with all the courage of a girl who doesn’t know how filthy and cruel the world can be. “Her name’s Virginia Potts.”

Antonia’s lips twitch and thumbs her pulse point where Yasha’s name is.

Sharon dumps the box onto the floor and jumps on top, her legs kicking back and forth. “When did you two meet? How did you two get together? Was there a flash of light? Did you faint when you touched for the first time? Carol Adams says that when she and Joey Forrester – that’s her soulmate – touched for the first time, they saw each other’s life flash before their eyes. Is that what happened to you?”

Antonia’s brow furrows. The stories that children come up with to explain soulmates are beautiful but untrue, and she doesn’t have the heart or the right to tear down all the incredible, unlikely things that Sharon believes so fiercely – cynicism is an unfair price, and she’d never wish it on anyone else, let alone someone as ingenuous as Sharon, if she could help it.

“Sharon Carter,” Peggy begins, loudly, sauntering in through the door, her hands on her hips. “I hope you’re not assaulting them with questions,” she says, sternly.

Sharon pouts. “I was just asking; they don’t have to answer if they don’t want to,” she argues, folding her thin arms over her chest.

Antonia grins, fleetingly. “It’s alright, Peggy,” she reassures. “I don’t mind.”

Peggy searches her, with all the edge of a knife point, before she sighs. “Very well, but don’t be afraid to tell her no if she starts bothering you.” She sends Sharon a fond-severe look, who promptly rolls her eyes, with all the courage of a girl who knows that Peggy would never lay a hand on her in an unkind way. “That being said, I have a gift for you.”

Antonia cocks an eyebrow and exchanges a bewildered look with Yasha.

“More of a gift than this house?” Yasha asks, dryly.

Peggy rolls her eyes, eyes glimmering with fondness. “Why don’t you come outside with me?” she urges, kindly, stretching a hand out.

Antonia follows dutifully, Yasha behind her at a more sedate pace – it isn’t that he dislikes Peggy, but she can see it in his eyes, the unease, the way he holds himself close around her; she thinks he fears Peggy wants more from him than he’s willing to give or capable of giving. She reaches behind her and grips his hand, feeling the flex of his muscle and fingers underneath her.

She smiles to herself.

This should never change, not between them.

* * *

“This is too much,” Antonia declares, bluntly, surveying what the finished product looks like.

Peggy pretends that Antonia doesn’t go as taut as a bowstring when her thin, withered hand grips her shoulder.

“Consider a lifetime of birthday gifts I never got a chance to give you,” she says, gently.

Antonia doesn’t know how to react to this, pressing a hand against her belly which rolls and roils. She musters up a small, shaky smile for her, one that feels odd and wrong on her mouth, but it does the trick because Peggy’s eyes wrinkle around the edges when she smiles, like a job well done.

She bites her lip. “Thank you,” she says, genuinely. “For everything, Peggy. For… believing us, for trusting us, for keeping us safe. You didn’t need to do that. You didn’t need to help us the way you have.”

Peggy shrugs. “You needed my help, so I helped. Don’t overthink it, darling.” She cups Antonia’s jaw. “You’re not evil, Antonia, no matter how much you think you are, no matter how much you may want to be. Neither of you are. What happened to you was awful and evil and cruel, but none of it, _none of it_ was your fault. I hope building a home for yourselves will help you see what I see in you.”

Tears threaten to sting her eyes, but she bites them back, because she’s never been a weeper, and she refuses to start now, even if Peggy’s words drag the air out of her lungs and make her world tilt right under her feet.

All she can do is nod and bite her mouth raw.

“I want you to have the best of lives here, and wherever else you choose to build your home.” Peggy hesitates. “I just…” She cuts herself off, midway.

Antonia’s brow furrows. “What is it?” she asks, concerned.

“I know you’ve made your feelings on this clear, and don’t think it’s me pushing you,” Peggy begins, quietly. “But I know your parents would love to see you, Antonia, if only to know that you’re safe now.”

The strange tightness in her chest, the knot in her throat, the way her pulse thuds, they are all old wounds to her, but she feels them so viscerally in this moment.

“I…” she trails off, swallows hard, not knowing what she should say here, not knowing what she wants to say. She looks away, staked out carelessly like a butterfly tacked to a display case by the firm look in Peggy’s eyes. “I’m not their Antonia,” she says, vaguely.

“There is no _their Antonia_ , love,” Peggy reminds her. “There is only you, and whatever you are today is the _right_ Antonia.”

Antonia shakes her head. “If you knew what I’ve done, if _they_ knew what I’ve done…”

“They wouldn’t think badly of you,” Peggy interjects, sternly. “They’d be bloody fools, and Howard and Maria Stark are no fools.”

Antonia gives her a wild, unsure look, turning to Yasha, desperately. “I don’t know… I don’t…”

Her stomach lurches with butterflies, and she splays a hand over her flat belly, where it rolls, and she’s lost; it’s a thinly-veiled desire that bites at her, to see those people in a photograph she had seen once, to see what they are today, what they have become without her, what she could’ve had, but she thinks it would be more grief than gladness.

She _thinks._

Peggy sighs and grabs blindly for Antonia’s wrist, squeezing. “Think on it. Don’t make any decisions yet. If you don’t want to see them, I won’t ever force you. And if you change your mind, all you have to do is pick up your phone and tell me and I’ll arrange everything. This isn’t… this isn’t a one-time offer, I promise.”

Antonia swallows past the knot in her throat and nods, shaking head to foot. Peggy cups her jaw, thumb smoothing over Antonia’s defined cheekbone, as she gives her an unbearably soft look, like a mother would a child, and Antonia finds her chest blossoming with warmth, warmth that tastes sweeter than honey.

Peggy gives her hand one last squeeze, before giving Yasha a gentle smile, and strides out of the door, her walk purposeful, like even at her age, she was still capable of cutting her enemies down with ease – if Antonia could believe it of anyone, she would believe it of Peggy.

Antonia sinks into a chair, a pretty little plush thing, upholstered in red, that feels like cotton candy and pillow fluff, her whole body falling loose. She buries her face in her hands and moans into her palms. Two big, deft hands wind around her wrists, still thin as toothpicks even with the change in her nutrition, which hasn’t done much to dull the trauma of making a home with HYDRA, nor has it done much to put fat on her bones. She pulls away from her palms, only to find Yasha kneeling in front of her, staring up at her through his thick, dark lashes, hurt shadowing behind his blue-grey eyes.

He makes a sound of discontent, his thumb prying out her lower lip from under her teeth. Her mouth aches, and she realises that she’d been biting the flesh raw.

“ _Malina moya_ ,” he says, roughly, all sad eyes, and that’s enough for her.

She clutches at him and he hitches her up against him, hands steadying her, as they thread into her dark, unbound hair. She grips at his shoulders, digging her nails into his shoulders with a sting of pain that she knows won’t bother him.

“You want to see them,” he says, heavily.

“No,” she replies, promptly, and then deflates. “Yes. Oh, fuck, I don’t know.”

She can’t describe it, can’t put it to words, the gnawing, twisting feeling low in her belly when she’d put names to the people in that photo: _mother_ and _father_. She’s had so many thoughts, so many urges, so many delusions about how it would all go, how she would be introduced to these two strangers, her parents, the people who brought her into this world, only to be turned into a monster, and she thinks she would run, because she doesn’t thinks she could face _this_ demon; she doesn’t think she could do justice to what Howard and Maria Stark would want from her.

“I’m not her,” she blurts out, tired, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m not…” she swallows past the knot in her throat. “I’m not Antonia Stark. Yeah, I go by the name. I look like her. But I’m not her. I’m not the Antonia Stark they would _want_. How can I face them like _this_?” she asks, wildly, running a hand through her hair.

“Like what?”

“Like _this_ ,” she snaps, lunging to her feet. “You think this woman, this Maria Stark, bled and screamed to bring her daughter into this world to end up like _me_?”

He stares at her, all silent and patient. “I never understood this,” he says, suddenly. “I don’t understand why you think you’re less. Do you have any idea…” he cuts himself off midway, shaking his head. “Do you have _any_ idea how I see you?” he demands, fiercely.

She quails from the sharp and singular look in his eyes, dragging in air through her teeth. “That’s very different,” she whispers. “You know me. They don’t. They have no obligation to know or understand who I am now, what I’ve done.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “And I do?”

She gives him a withering look. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

His smile is barely there and swiftly gone, as is all of his smiles as long as she’s known them (it doesn’t bother her; for a moment, even for a fraction of a second, it was there and she saw it and that will always be enough for her and frankly, he has never been good at hiding things from her).

She folds her arms over her chest. “Why would I put myself in a situation where these people, these strangers can judge me and find me wanting and proceed to ruin me all over again?” she asks, edgily.

“Because you want to,” he points out, so bluntly, so ruthlessly that it should hurt, if she didn’t know him as well as she did. “When you kissed me in that apartment in Brooklyn two years ago, didn’t you feel the same way?”

She swallows hard, shying away from the logic in his words. “I did, yes.”

He gives her such an unbearably soft look that her insides melt. He touches her hair and then her cheek with his thumb.

“You are always so brave, _milaya moya_ ,” he murmurs, pulling her in close. “Be brave.”

Something slackens inside her when her nose juts into his collarbone, and she breathes a little easier.

“But what if they-” her voice ebbs away, as she bites her lip.

“I am not Bucky Barnes anymore,” he drawls, plainly, tilting her chin up to look into his eyes. “But you, you are all Antonia Stark will ever be. There is no shame in that, because there is no Antonia without you. You haven’t taken her place; you haven’t subsumed her existence. You are her, and she is you. You owe them no guilt, no fear, no doubt, no shyness. You are not wanting, not lacking, not _less_ in any way; do you understand me?” 

Time slows and stretches around her, but she nods, amidst the unsteady, angry rhythm of her heart in her chest.

“But what if they _do_ find me wanting?” she can’t help but ask.

“Well,” he draws out the sound. “I have a gun. I might as well use it.”

The laugh falls out of her before she even realises it rumbles to life in her chest. She presses her forehead against his, while his hand curls around her nape, warm, firm, heavy, a smile curling her mouth.

“I adore you,” she insists.

Yasha grins, fleetingly, and drags her into his lap, practically toppling her off the chair, and kisses her warm and solid, slowly making it filthy until he’s bearing her down onto the floor, wiry, sinewy muscle bracketing her.

She bites her lip and stares up at him expectantly, hot and swollen and itching for his hands on her.

“I’m going to fuck you here, in our home,” he declares, casually, staring down at her like she’s everything that makes him whole in this world.

His hand splays across her warm side, under her shirt, and she parts her mouth under his eagerly, as he strips her off her clothes and pulls his own off as well. His fingers slide between her legs, and she arches with a little sigh of satisfaction, and when she’s so full, so stretched around his cock, lying on the cold, bare floor, with him looming over her, the burn dragging the air out of her lungs, she thinks this is all she’ll ever want in this world.

* * *

Peggy is a little startled and unsubtly thrilled, when she phones her and lets her know she’d like to meet Howard and Maria.

She had long since discovered Peggy is the sort of woman who likes to get her way in things – it’s quite okay, because she thinks she’s exactly the same sort of woman as well.

Yasha has a deft, masculine arm settled around her waist, when she makes the call, his chin settled on her shoulder, his warm, solid chest against her back, swaying them back and forth to distract her, to dull the butterflies lurching in her stomach.

It makes the whole experience marginally better.

She puts the phone down and turns in his arms, her nose jutting into his collarbone.

“She thinks it’ll be better if it happens in her house,” she explains, swallowing compulsively. “I think so too. I can’t imagine it’d be easy for her to drag these two people to a stranger’s house on false pretences.”

“Shall I come with you, _carevna_?” he asks, openly.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m still not a princess,” she complains. “But, of course, why wouldn’t you come with me?” she asks, confused.

“This is for you, for you to meet your family.” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t want to detract from that.”

“You wouldn’t,” she insists, leaning into his touch. “ _You_ are my family, Yasha. Before anything or anyone else, before Howard and Maria Stark, _you_ are my family. You loved me long before anyone else did or could.” She gives him a soft, sad look. “I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

Yasha’s brow draws together. “If you want me there, I’ll be there,” he soothes.

Something in her chest loosens and she exhales. “Good.”

A smile curls his lips, teasing and so fond. “ _Carevna_ ,” he teases.

She huffs. “I am _not_ a princess.”

“You are,” he declares and swings her up into his arms. “You are my princess. You are mine and mine alone.”

She kisses and kisses him, greedily, and he crowds her up against the wall, her legs around his waist, all bodies and heat. When she comes, she comes with his name behind her teeth and he pulses inside her, shaking until he’s limp and shaking and damp with sweat, and it’s the sweetest, most absolute thing that ever happens between them.

It’s one more triumph that HYDRA cannot steal from them, and she thinks: this is what life is; this is what eternity is, and it’s finally theirs.

* * *

She parks against the curb just in front of Peggy’s house and her hands clench and unclench around the steering wheel, even after she’s switched off the ignition.

Yasha wraps a paw around her wrist, his warm, hot, heavy palm burning the soulmark on her wrist. “We don’t have to do this,” he offers. “We can leave; we can run.”

She musters up a smile for him. “We have a home now,” she reminds him, gently.

Yasha shrugs. “I’d go anywhere with you. I’d _run_ anywhere with you,” he says, so calmly, like it’s the only truth he knows in this world.

She doesn’t think it’s possible to love this man more than she does already, but in this moment, he proves her wrong. She reaches for him, pulling close, over the divide between their seats, and slants her mouth over his.

“You are… everything good and right in this world for me, do you understand?” she murmurs against him, pressing her forehead against his.

Yasha tips his head up and presses his mouth against her forehead. “You are the bravest thing I know,” he insists. “If anyone can do this, if anyone can face these people, it’s you. I know it.”

She nods, leaning into him. He squeezes her hand and hurtles out of the car, abruptly, slinking over to her side and opening her door for her.

“Come.” He holds a hand out for her, pulling her out of her seat. He holds her close as they cross the street. “Be brave,” he mutters in her ear.

She nods. _I am brave. Yasha says I’m brave. Yasha wouldn’t lie to me_ , she reasons and inhales.

“They’d know me,” he muses, suddenly. “At least, according to Peggy, your father and I knew each other during World War II.”

“You _are_ old,” she mutters and laughs when he pinches her on the slope of her hip.

Yasha rolls his eyes. “ _Carevna_ ,” he teases, and she scowls, immediately, like clockwork. “Does that mean you want someone younger, to keep up with you?”

She snorts. “You should be so lucky,” she mutters, pressing her mouth to his hair in a smacking kiss. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, _krasavets_.” 

They land on the doorstep and she, once again, hesitates when it comes to knocking on the door. Yasha, seeing her pause, is quick to do it for her and she sends him a grateful look. He only clutches her tighter and whispers once more, “be brave”, in her ear.

She takes a deep breath, hearing the sound of footfalls on the other side of the door and when it swings open, Peggy is on the other side, hair meticulously curled but slightly askew. Her harried expression quickly fades into one of joy and she reaches for Antonia first, clutching at her with bony, strong arms. Antonia falls into the embrace quite easily, resting her chin on Peggy’s shoulder, before the older woman releases her. Yasha stomachs the embrace as well, even if there will always be a divide between the two of them, and a lingering shadow with a shape that Yasha doesn’t like to talk about, but he always has a warm look for Peggy and that’s enough, for now.

“They’re already here,” Peggy explains in a low, halting voice.

Antonia takes a deep breath and her doubt must show because Peggy reaches for her again, squeezing her hand.

“Don’t worry, love, everything’s going to be just fine,” she soothes.

Antonia nods and steps over the threshold, even though her stomach lurches with butterflies. Yasha follows after her, closing Peggy’s door shut, and lingers when Peggy drags her into the lounge.

There are two older people sitting on the sofa, talking amongst themselves in a low whisper. Antonia takes this chance to examine them. The woman is young, older than her, of course, but much younger than Peggy or the man beside her. She has long, thick dark hair, down to her waist, with dark olive skin, the same colour as Antonia’s, although with more lines. Her eyes are brown, the colour of a doe’s fur, and her mouth is plump and dark with lipstick, skin lined with age. The man, on the other hand, his hair is completely shot with grey, coupled with a moustache, and it makes her think that her father is old, very old. He is lean and bony, in a smart suit, and she doesn’t think he is a fighter, not like her, but perhaps her mind is a gift from him, knowing what she knows of Howard Stark’s threat level.

They stop talking the second they see her and Peggy and Yasha hovering in the background. Something in the man (in her father, she should say – denial has never gotten her anywhere) changes when he spots her and then Yasha at her shoulder.

He lurches to his feet.

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Antonia blinks and then feels a well of disappointment – _of course_ , he would recognise Yasha first. He knows him, has fought with him, grieved over him, once, she would think. She had not expected differently, but she can’t help that it stings.

Howard is clearly reeling from such a shock (Antonia worries for his heart – he looks so _old_ , it can’t be good for him), but it is Maria that figures it out first (perhaps she was wrong; perhaps her mind is a gift from her mother, not her father). She stumbles to her feet.

“Oh,” she sobs out, holding her palm to her heart. She shakes her head, perhaps in an attempt to force herself to disbelieve what she’s saying. “How?” her voice cuts off like ice snapping. She looks at Peggy, wildly, her eyes red-rimmed. “What’s going on here, Peggy?” she demands.

“What are you talking about, Maria?” Howard snaps at his wife, the lines around his mouth thin and tense (he is not a man that smiles often, she thinks; she wonders if that’s because of her; she wonders if he became unsmiling and cold and stern for the grief of her – in some twisted way, that would be sweet, to think her father loved her that much).

But, then, he finally, properly, looks at her, and something cracks wide open.

“No,” he chokes, frail, bony fingers grappling for the armrest on the sofa to steady him. “That’s not possible.”

Peggy takes a step forward, seizing all of the attention. “It is,” she says, solemnly. “You should take a seat, Howard, Maria. There’s a lot we have to tell you.”

Maria and Howard look at her, incredulously, but there’s a certain power to Peggy’s voice and Antonia’s felt the vice of it before, herself, so it doesn’t surprise her when they sink back down onto the sofa once more.

Their hands grip the edge, though, like they think the ground will crumble beneath them and they’ll fall.

Antonia understands; she’s lingering in the same limbo.

Peggy’s eyes dart to Antonia, asking her a final wordless question that she nods to.

“Howard, Maria, this is Antonia,” she begins, haltingly, hand reaching out to bring Antonia in close. “Your daughter.”

Maria shakes her head, eyelashes wet, makeup running. “My daughter is dead, Peggy,” she insists, her voice rough.

Peggy gives her dear friend a soft, sad look. “Oh, Maria, no, she’s not.”

Howard’s hands clench around his thighs. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this rubbish-” he growls in an ugly tone.

“Howard,” Peggy barks and he falls silent (Antonia thinks it’s beautiful, not because she finds the man intolerable, but because she considers Peggy to be the fiercest woman she’s ever met). “Have I ever lied to you, Howard?” she asks, her voice growing soft.

Howard grits his teeth and looks away, unwilling to answer, but they all (even Antonia and Yasha) know that the answer is yes.

“It’s true,” Antonia blurts out.

She doesn’t know what prompts her, what demands that she speak, but all she knows is that she wants them, her parents, to look her in the eye, instead of at the floor, in fear of her, in fear of what she means.

She swallows compulsively.

“I am Antonia Stark,” she says, bravely, her shoulders straightening. “I am your daughter.”

Howard glares at her, viciously. She resists the urge to flinch away from his dark gaze.

“Our daughter is dead,” he says, coldly.

“No, I’m not,” Antonia says, almost gently. “I…” she looks at Yasha, who nudges her forward with a simple look in his eyes. “I was taken from the hospital where I was born. I didn’t die there, like you thought.”

Maria looks so achingly sad, but still managing to hold a quiet strength, without faltering once. “How? Who?” she asks, her hands fidgeting on her lap.

“Me,” Yasha rasps, so she doesn’t have to.

Howard shakes his head. “You shouldn’t even be alive,” he snaps at the man who looms behind the woman claiming to be his only ( _dead_ ) child. “You died, Barnes, fifty years ago. You fell from a train, and now you’re telling me you kidnapped by daughter? How are you even standing here?” he demands.

“HYDRA,” Antonia says, quietly.

Howard’s full-body flinch is somehow surprising. “HYDRA’s dead. It died when the Red Skull died,” he retorts.

Antonia gives him a soft, pitying look. “I’m afraid not.”

Howard scowls, furiously, and Antonia’s a little startled by how similar the sight is to one she’s seen in the mirror. “And I’m supposed to believe you? Some imposter pretending to be my dead kid?”

“No, you’re supposed to believe me,” Peggy chimes in, sternly. “You think I would’ve let these two anywhere near you unless I was absolutely sure they were telling the truth, that they were who they say they are.”

Howard’s mouth thins. “Peg, it’s not possible,” he practically begs, unable to bear the thought.

Peggy softens. “Oh, Howard, it is.” She turns to Maria, even gentler. “I’m so sorry, Maria, but it is.”

Maria, on the other hand, shakes her head. “No, no, I…” she steps forward, despite Howard hissing in her ear. “I think… I knew it when they walked in, when I saw your face,” she tells Antonia, almost at a whisper. “It sounds strange, and I’ve never been the type of person that’s held to that theory a mother just instinctively knows her child, but… it’s you. I know it’s you,” she finishes firmly.

Antonia musters up a tentative smile for her mother and nods. “It is. It’s me.”

Maria hitches in a thick gulp of air. “ _Mija_ ,” she murmurs. “Oh, my baby girl. It is you.”

She reaches for her and pulls her in close. Antonia resists the instinctual urge to snap the woman’s neck, hands twitching at her side, as her body fights the unfamiliarity of Maria’s hands and grip and the smell of talcum powder and perfume.

 _My mother_ , she reasons. _Who else has more of a right to touch me?_

Antonia rests her chin on her mother’s shoulder and something, a knot she hadn’t even known of, loosens in her chest.

Maria pulls back, dragging her thumb back and forth over Antonia’s cheekbone. “ _Mija_ , oh, look at you. You look so beautiful,” she insists, a broad smile stretching across her face. “I always knew you’d be beautiful.”

Antonia flushes, looking down at her feet. When she chances a look at Howard, he’s just standing there, ashen and sickly-looking, like she’s a ghost come to ruin him.

“I don’t…” he swallows hard, squeezing his own wrist (Antonia blinks; she does the same thing). “I don’t understand how any of this possible,” he says, heavily. He looks at Yasha and his face darkens. “How are you alive? Why did you kidnap our daughter? How are both of you here now? I need more than just _oh, right, yes, she’s the daughter that you thought died in a hospital a week after she was born_. I need an explanation.”

“We don’t know half of it, ourselves,” Antonia says, edgily, folding her arms over her chest.

Yasha grips her shoulder. “ _Malina moya_ ,” he rumbles.

Peggy steps forward. “I can explain, if you’d like,” she offers, her voice cast warm.

Antonia nods, quickly, happy enough to hand over the responsibility to someone else, as the space around her gets colder, smaller, like she’s underwater.

The only thing grounding her to this plane is Yasha’s hand on her shoulder.

“HYDRA got James when he fell from the train,” Peggy explains, low and rushed. “They found in the mountains and took him back to their base, where they experimented on him.”

“But how’d he survive the fall?” Howard demands, shooting furtive, suspicious glances in their direction. “No one could’ve; only-” he cuts himself off, turning pallid.

“Steve,” Yasha finishes, his voice thin. “You mean, only Steve could’ve survived.”

Howard grits his teeth, looking away. “He had the serum.”

“HYDRA experimented on James, before Steve rescued him and the rest of the 107th,” Peggy says, quietly, pointedly. “Whatever it is that they did to him,” she eyes Yasha carefully. “It clearly made him stronger, more resilient. HYDRA must’ve known that and taken him prisoner when they found a good opportunity.”

Yasha shrugs. “It’s not like I can corroborate any of this,” he says, grimly.

“Why?” Howard asks, almost disdainful. “Why can’t you corroborate the story?”

Yasha gives him a flat look. “Because I can’t remember. HYDRA was very good at making sure I didn’t remember a lot of things.”

His lips press into a thin line and Antonia reaches for him, threading their fingers together. A breath loosens from his chest, when she squeezes his hand, and she’s glad, so glad.

She’d kiss every single hurt off his mouth if she could. 

“You don’t have to do this; you don’t have to say _anything_ ,” she murmurs, tilting her head. “You came here for me; you didn’t come here to get interrogated.” She palms his jaw, thumb dragging back and forth over his cheekbone. “Don’t do this for me, Yasha. _Please_.”

“ _Malina moya_ ,” Yasha says, gently. “This started with me. Let me explain.”

Antonia grits her teeth and looks away, her chest hurting.

“I took her from the hospital when she was born,” he declares, firmly, turning to Howard and Maria. “I watched you all for days before I took her.” His gaze edges towards Maria. “You came in every day, in a wheelchair, driven in by an older man; he had a British accent, if I remember correctly. There was a woman with him, red hair.”

Maria nods, biting her lower lip. “Edwin Jarvis, and his wife, Ana” she answers. She looks at Antonia, pain shadowing her eyes. “He’s your godfather. Ana, she passed away a couple of years back; she had cancer, you see, but she lit a _yahrzeit_ candle for you, every year, on Yom Kippur.”

Antonia startles, but silently takes in the names, mouthing it to herself: _Edwin and Ana Jarvis. Edwin and Ana Jarvis. Edwin and Ana Jarvis_.

“It was a week before I took her,” Yasha goes on, dully, staring off, as if he’s lost at sea.

Her thumb drags back and forth over his soulmark and that’s the only way she knows he’s still here, with her.

“The doctor said, she had transient tachypnoea of the newborn and she wasn’t breathing properly.”

Maria bites her lip. “She was in an incubator,” she agrees, quietly. “We were all set to pick her up when-” she breaks off, halfway, swallowing hard.

Yasha nods, warily. “Yes, she was supposed to leave the next day when I took her.”

“Where?” Howard asks, coldly, his voice thin and distorted. “Where did you take her?”

“The base in Baton Rouge,” Antonia clarifies, looking at Yasha, who nods. She grits her teeth. “God, I hated that place.” She mutters in an ugly tone.

Howard startles and looks at Peggy, helplessly.

“I already took care of it,” Peggy reassures. “I sent men to the address they gave me.” She grimaces and looks away. “HYDRA had already cleared the place out.”

Howard shakes his head, his lip curling. “Fucking HYDRA.”

“Fucking HYDRA,” Antonia agrees, quietly, wringing her hands together.

Howard stares at her, then, something stricken in his old, lined face, before he nods at her, weakly, like this is something destructive and awful and cruel that cuts right through him, right down to his pith, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it – she doesn’t think he’s very good at dealing with anything, her father.

But she understands; she understands better than most.

Howard clears his throat, almost compulsively. “Why her? Why’d HYDRA want their grubby hands on a fucking baby?” he demands. 

Antonia drags in air through her teeth and stares at Yasha for a moment, before baring her wrist in her father’s direction, close enough that he can read the _James Buchanan Barnes_ that’s inked across her skin.

She sees how it affects him, Howard, like the impact of what this means, what is on her wrist, cleaving right through him.

Maria holds her hand against her mouth. “Oh.”

She makes a hurt little noise that viscerally hurts Antonia and she’s biting her mouth raw, waiting for them to say something, and she thinks it’s something awful, judging by how the blood is so hot, so fierce in Howard’s face, turning his skin a bold shade of purple.

“You fucking miserable bastard,” Howard spits out, in an ugly tone, as if he were dizzy with all the hate, staring at Yasha with such venom, such disgust that makes something curdle like rot in Antonia’s stomach. 

She eyes Yasha, just once, and she hates how he looks, the pain shadowing his eyes, his heart pounding against his lungs, like he’s screaming like an animal in a trap, all awful and loud, and she knows, _she knows_ that he believes it, he believes everything her father is saying, and it’s all twisting and rotting in his head, everything that’s happened between them is something disgusting and wrong and rancid, everything that it _isn’t._

 _No. No. No, please, no_ , she wants to sob. _Don’t take this, don’t take him from me._

“Wait,” Antonia bites out, sliding between her father and Yasha, like a shield, with a look, a glower in her eyes that could cut like a knife.

 _I would save him every time, and he would save me every time_ , she reasons.

“You don’t understand,” she insists, coldly.

Howard laughs, a cold, brutal sound. “Oh, I think I do.”

“What you’re thinking he did, he didn’t.”

“You _would_ say that,” Howard snaps. He takes a step forward, almost begging. “You don’t understand, Antonia.”

Antonia reels back, hating the way he looks at her, like she’s been used like a thing and thrown because she’s nothing; she hates that he thinks Yasha would hurt her, would touch her in a way that makes her skin crawl, that he’s so evil, so twisted, so cruel, like he’s cut from the same thread as the commander that she killed.

It makes her want to vomit.

“I understand better than you,” she says, coldly. “You have no idea what we’ve gone through, what we’ve done, what we _are_. Don’t you _dare_ judge us, and don’t you _dare_ treat him like he’s less. He saved me. I’m only standing in front of you because of him.” Her hand tightens around Yasha’s; if he were a weaker man, it would’ve broken under her hold. “Don’t ever talk to him like that again.”

Howard recoils from her vitriol, falling silent with a dark, miserable look on his face.

Maria steps forward. “Please, go on,” she asks, gently, her eyes wide and dark and hungry for any sort of explanation.

“When she was born, the soulmark appeared,” Yasha says, rubbing over his own wrist. “HYDRA didn’t like that. They didn’t like their Soldier having a weakness, a cause to rebel; so, they decided they’d have her for herself.”

“Soldier?” Howard clarifies, grimly.

Yasha levels him with a flat look. “They called me the Winter Soldier, HYDRA’s greatest warrior. Your daughter was their Engineer. I think you can guess what sort of work they gave us.”

Howard looks away immediately, the tendon in his jaw clenching.

Maria wrings her hands together, her eyes boring into Antonia’s. “Do I want to know, what they did to you?” she asks, haltingly.

She gives her a soft, sad look. “No, I don’t think so,” she says, gently.

“So, you just took her from us,” Howard says, coldly, his jaw like stone.

“If I had any choice in it, I would never come near her,” Yasha says, fiercely, and it makes her flinch. “But I won’t regret anything that happened that kept us alive and brought us here. And I won’t regret anything we are to each other today.”

He squeezes her hand so tight that her lungs start working again.

Howard’s expression sours further and he drags a hand over his face. “So, you didn’t die like we all thought. Instead, you’ve been working with HYDRA to kill people these last couple of decades, and you dragged my kid into all of that shit.”

“Brainwashed,” Antonia corrects, sternly. “I know him; I know the sort of man he is, and he wouldn’t hurt anyone if he could. You don’t know what he was like, when I was growing up. You don’t know what they did to him, _to us_. You can’t-“ she shakes her head, almost desperate. “You can’t treat him like that, like he’s evil. You don’t-you _don’t_ know how they hurt him, how they hurt _us_. You _can’t_ -” the words break off in a thick, wet sound that almost sounds like a sob.

She remembers all those puddles of flesh, blood and bared bone she’d emptied out onto floors, all the blood and viscera she’d streaked onto walls, and she remembers the blind, hungry cruelty in the commander’s eyes, his heart, how he looked her with such want and hate and what he did to her to make her compliant.

Her hands shake.

She’s startled when Yasha seizes her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, staring down at her with such a gentle look. “It’s _okay_. We’re safe now. He’s dead. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. I won’t let you.”

She bites her lip and after a moment, she nods.

His expression quickly morphs into a smile. “I would save you every time,” he whispers, thumbing her cheekbone.

She nods again. “I know. I would save you every time. I _would_.”

He threads his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her skull.

“Excuse me,” Howard drawls, interjecting and abruptly ruining the moment. “Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not a huge fan of you groping my kid in front of me.”

Antonia scowls at the show of ownership, her teeth bared in offence. “So, you accept that I’m your kid,” she says, belligerently.

Howard grunts and looks away (she wonders if he’s terrified of something he sees in her eyes; she wonders if he sees all that viciousness, the need to knife and kick and jab and bite looming behind her eyes).

“Maybe I find your story compelling,” he admits, grudgingly.

Antonia rounds on Peggy, who shrugs.

“This is what he does,” Peggy explains, lamely, unable to offer anything more.

“I don’t care,” Maria says, suddenly, sharp and singular, stepping forward. “I knew it, I don’t know how I knew it, I don’t want to know more, I don’t need to, but you _are_ my Antonia. I _know_ you are. That’s all I need.”

Antonia flushes, hot and bright, and looks down at her feet, the warmth unrolling in the pit of her stomach.

“Maria,” Howard drags a hand over his face.

Maria spits something at him in Spanish that makes his face turn pale. “ _Ella es mía._ She is _mine_ , Howard. I won’t be parted from her again. _Deal with it._ ”

The look in Howard’s eyes softens visibly – for all of his irritating qualities, Antonia thinks he loves her mother very much. Finally, he turns to her, and something in her ribcage loosens in relief, at the heart-wrenching look on his face.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Peggy slips in, quietly, squeezing Antonia’s hand. “But it’s her. It’s Toni. _Our_ Toni.”

Antonia leans into the touch.

Finally, her father nods, and there’s even a sheen of tears in his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Toni,” he says, thickly, and looks away. “I… _this_ is where you belong.”

He nods again, firmer and more deliberate, and she thinks this is the moment he can’t ignore reality, the truth, any longer, screaming at him like a fishwife.

This is the moment where he makes her his daughter in his head, the moment where there is no longer a possibility of a question, a doubt, as to who she was, who she _is_ , to him, in particular – he won’t allow it, and Howard Stark is a stubborn old man in everything, after all.

Her lungs are in her throat, and she breathes.

Maria approaches her, her eyes wide-blown, and palms her cheek without hesitation, her thin expression quickly morphing into a nervous smile.

“Welcome home, _mija_ ,” she whispers.


	3. iii.

They start making a life of their own in that little town, in that little house that is just theirs – it’s not the most impressive of homes, of course, nothing like the hotel suites her marks had taken her to all those years ago. No, this is a nice little bungalow on a quiet street, with steps leading up to a porch and a front door. The inside is nothing special: a kitchen and two bedrooms and a bathroom and a dining room that doubles as a lounge with a television. It’s all the things she’d seen on the television, had thought of as mythical, something out of a fairytale, and now it’s all _theirs_.

She doesn’t know if she particularly wants it, wants _this_ life, this apple-pie existence, but she’s hungry enough to keep it for _them_ , so no one can ever take it away.

They _always_ take it away.

But, before jobs, before emptying all of their boxes, before introducing themselves to their neighbours (she’s heard they do that sort of thing on TV; Sharon had even advised in favour of such an action), before getting a library card, before finding a good takeout spot that they’ll reach for every Friday night, because Antonia thinks she’s quite terrible in the kitchen, but Yasha has hidden skills that he hadn’t even realised until he’d poured batter in a pan and served her a pile of pancakes covered in peanut butter syrup and raspberries (she still blushes), they have a lot of sex.

A _lot_ of sex.

He has her on every surface he can, on the bed, on the floor (in the first few weeks, it had bene their default place to sleep; they always slept on the floor when they were with HYDRA), in the shower, on the kitchen counter, on the sofa in the lounge, on top of the washing machine, even out in the garden underneath the stars.

She comes every time with a laugh and blinding smile, full of teeth, because this is something that HYDRA, the commander, wanted to take from her, from _them_ , and they’ve failed.

They don’t own them, their hands, their hearts, their heads, their bodies, anymore.

They belong to themselves, to each other.

In the garden, she lies in the grass, hands fisting in the dirt, as he fucks her stupid and desperate, obscene and relentless. She surges up and kisses him hard, all bodies and heat, and leaning into where his eyes are black beneath his eyelashes, blown and lascivious.

She comes, with him between her spread thighs, her mouth a slack, wet smear against his shoulder, with a sharp, high-pitched noise that she thinks makes the trees in their garden rattle, which breaks off into a little giggle.

“My pride’s taking a blow,” he grunts, hips stuttering and snapping forward.

She laughs. “I thought we were making the shrubbery move.” She gives him a lustful look and waggles her eyebrows. “Come, _dorogaya moya_ , let’s make the trees shake,” she says, sweetly, hands dragging over lean muscle and gleaming skin.

Yasha huffs out an amused sound against the long line of her throat, and pounds into her like he’s on a mission, with all that resolve, all that focus, all that bite. One final, brutal thrust later, he groans her name, making her slick with the first pulse of come.

She waits for him to stop spilling inside her, whining a little when he thrusts, testing the waters, into the thick, wet mess of come and slick that he’s made of her cunt, rubbing her hands over the smooth skin of his back.

He pulls out, slumping onto the grass beside her, and laughs, a little, a sound that she rarely hears and treasures all the more. She throws a leg over his hip and turns into him.

“Do you think anyone heard us?” she asks, in a low, rushed voice.

Yasha settles his metal hand on top of her head, the heavy, cool weight making her drowsy. “I hope they did,” he murmurs into her hair.

She smiles against his chest. “Oh?”

Yasha sighs. “Good sex is a gift from God. They should be so lucky.”

Antonia shakes with amusement, pressing her soft breasts and lithe body against him, so he could clutch at her and grope her pretty ass to his heart’s content.

“So,” she traces a pattern, absent-mindedly, over his chest chair, over the pale, raised scar cutting over a pectoral. “Where shall we have sex next?” she asks, enthusiastically.

Yasha chuckles and topples her onto her back, brushing her dark, wild hair out of her face, staring down at her like she’s everything he thought love would be.

“Who said I was done with you in the grass?” he asks, smoothly, tangling their limbs together.

She bites her lip, staring up at him through her thick, dark eyelashes, and leans between their bodies to stroke his cock, which swells in her grip. She rubs up against him, pulling him down for a deep, filthy kiss.

“Why are you still talking?”

* * *

First, they find jobs, because it would be unfair, unjust, to live on Peggy’s generosity for much longer.

Neither of them are up for public consumption yet, not after the life they’ve had, and Antonia, frankly, has no small amount of confusion regarding social customs in 1995, but for whatever she catches on the television. She, of course, has the option of slipping into the familiar mask of the Engineer, but she chafes under the rigidity of that skin and finds herself spurning it with a new, bitter hatred. She has many marketable skills, but none of them conducive to a content social existence in today’s America and would likely terrify the population of the small town that they’re attempting to make their home.

So, for the ease of existence in a small town, she decides to delve into the one skill that is palatable to the public, a fix-it shed that runs right out of their garage, so she doesn’t need to step out into the sun just yet. At first, people drive by with a sneer, perhaps, at the idea of having to resort to a woman’s skill when it comes to something mechanical, which is laughable, of course, considering everything she’s capable of (she wonders if they’d sneer so much if she showed them how to slit someone’s throat so it looks like a self-inflicted injury and then painstakingly burn the body such that no residue is left). But, finally, she is fruitful, after an incident with the woman who lives across the street runs into car trouble, juggling two small children, with another one, not older than five, tugs at her shirt.

The car doesn’t start when she tries to pull out of the driveway and Antonia can hear the children screaming and the mother’s frustrated, upset shouting from where she’s aggressively pulling out weeds from the garden bed, imagining each plant as a different HYDRA handler that star in her nightmares every night.

Finally, she gives up and crosses the street, rapping her knuckles on the glass window, sharply.

The mother startles and turns to look at her, suspiciously.

Antonia cocks a brow. “Car trouble?”

The mother flushes. “Yeah, I think so. I tried starting it, but no luck. There’s gas and everything.”

Antonia meets her flustered gaze, steadily. “Would you like me to take a look?” she offers.

The mother runs a hand over her face, weary lines carved into the skin. She eyes her screaming children in the backseat, arguing with each other about something or another, and finally sighs like she’s carrying the whole world on her shoulders.

Antonia supposes she is; mothers do when it comes to their children – she doesn’t touch her belly, her belly that won’t ever swell if she has anything to say about it, but it’s sour-sweet in its own way.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

Antonia gives her a flicker of a smile; she’s very good at pretending to be a normal person. She rounds the car, opening up the hood.

She peers inside.

“Your battery’s low on charge.”

The mother’s head sinks onto the steering wheel. “For fuck’s sake,” she mutters, low enough under her breath that her children won’t hear, but loud enough that Antonia, with her enhanced hearing, catches it.

She grins to herself.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she says, casually. “It can be charged, but I’m guessing you’re on your way to school; that might be a problem.”

The mother looks at her pathetically, her face crumpling with sheer exhaustion, dark circles like bruises under her eyes. “My husband has the other car. I don’t…” she flounders for words.

“It’s fine. I can drop you three at the school, just after I set the car up to charge.”

The mother’s face cracks wide open, as if she might sob. “You’d really do that? I don’t… I don’t know how to thank you. We don’t even know each other.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Antonia waves off. “Just give me a second to get this battery charging and you can jump into my car.”

“Are you sure? I mean… you probably have things to do, I don’t want to keep you-”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I couldn’t do it,” she points out. “Come, get out of there. I’m going to jump-start the car and let the engine run for a while to recharge the battery.”

The mother frowns, as she slips out of the car, moving to the backseat to unbuckle her children’s seatbelts.

“If you can jump-start the car, couldn’t I just drive it from there?”

“Well, you could, but you run the risk of the car stopping off the road somewhere.”

The mother blows out a breath between her teeth. “I’m already running late,” she says, frustrated.

The car rolls to a start with a deep, thundering hum, once Antonia works her magic.

“Okay, it’ll recharge for a couple of hours and that should be the end of it. Let me grab my car, and you can jump in.”

The mother laughs, almost helplessly, which softens the harsh line of her cheekbones abruptly. She tosses her honey-gold hair out of her face.

“You don’t know how much of a lifesaver you are to me right now,” she whispers. “It’s been one hell of a day, and it’s only 8:20.”

Antonia lets herself smile true for once, fleeting but undeniable. “I’ve had plenty of days like that. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll bring my car around.”

“Wait, I mean, you’re helping me out so much, and I don’t even know your name. Amy, that’s mine, I mean. Yours?”

The words sour her like curdled milk, and she runs her thumb over her pulse point, over Yasha’s name.

“Antonia,” she says, reminding herself. “My name’s Antonia.”

* * *

Later on, Yasha will tell her that she played that one well, and she will give him a dreamy look and ask him, _what do you mean_? He’ll laugh and pull her in close and steal the roll of bills tucked into her jeans pocket that Amy’s husband has insisted he give her for her help that morning when he’d come home and found his wife suitably furious at him for knowing that the battery needed to be charged and had done nothing about it.

“Shall we get pizza tonight?” Yasha asks, casually.

Antonia runs her fingers over the message pad beside their landline, the details of Amy’s friend whose alternator sadly broke last night.

Her smile grows teeth, and there’s a flash of satisfaction, almost selfish and hungry (she likes Amy, she does, but they can’t and won’t live off Peggy forever).

Whoever thought life could be so slow, so soft, so simple?

“Pizza sounds good.”

* * *

**1996**

“You will come to dinner,” Maria says, in a tone that brooks no argument.

Antonia sighs. “Maria-”

If it pains Maria that she doesn’t call her _mother_ or _mum_ or _mama_ , she doesn’t show it; the woman who brought Antonia Stark into this world is made of stronger things, sadly.

Maria softens her voice. “Please, would you? I know…” she hesitates, and for some reason, Antonia hates hearing it. “I know you’re happy in that house, in that town,” she says, cautiously. “Or maybe, you’re just content, but… this was the home you should have had, you should have seen. I just thought… I thought it might be nice for you to see it, to meet Jarvis, to have dinner with us. Only if you want, of course.”

Antonia hates that, when people say things like _should_ and _owed_ , like she is something less, but the Engineer smiles through Antonia’s face.

“Bring James,” Maria says, quickly. “You should both come.”

“Will he like that?” Antonia asks, lowly.

“Your father,” Maria falls silent. “Your father is a complicated man,” she hedges. “He’s missed you a lot.”

Antonia knows that; she’s seen the crow’s feet along his eyes, his hollowed-out face, the harsh tilt of his mouth, and she remembers the helpless, hopeless, aching look in his eyes when he’d set eyes on her and believed who she is, and knows that, whatever man he may be (and the television is quick to make him a monster, she can see), he has missed her.

“But he doesn’t like Yasha.”

“He… hasn’t quite come to terms with what happened to you,” Maria says, unbearably soft. “And James… despite what he means to you, what he is to you, well, Howard is yet to get over his role in that.”

Antonia grits her teeth. “It wasn’t his fault,” she says, sternly.

“I know that,” Maria soothes, although Antonia doesn’t quite believe her. “It’s just… well, look at it from our point of view. You were a baby, and you went missing, and now you’re back, with a soulmate and a terrifying past that you won’t talk to us about. James is… James is…”

“A victim,” Antonia finishes for her. “Just as I am. He didn’t do anything to me that he was allowed a choice in.”

“You’re our baby, _mija_ ,” Maria says, solemn as the grave. “Give us some time to adjust.”

Antonia bites her mouth and stares down at her bare feet, wiggling her toes. Amy had harangued her into some nail polish, and the pale pink-mauve of her nails now gleamed a shiny apple red.

“I will ask him,” she says, formally. “If you will promise that Howard will behave.”

“He will,” Maria replies, confidently, easily, like it’s no great feat of hers to make her husband fall in line.

Antonia’s seen the lovesick look in Howard’s dark eyes when he looks at her mother; it’s mirrored in Yasha’s face as well. She wholeheartedly believes that Maria is capable of anything and everything where Howard Stark is concerned.

“Very well,” she says. “We’ll come for dinner, if Yasha agrees.”

* * *

“We could go home, you know,” Antonia points out, rocking back on her heels.

Yasha’s mouth twists into a smile. “Do you want to run away, _malina moya_?” he teases.

Antonia huffs. “I told you, stop calling me a raspberry, and _don’t_ call me a raspberry in front of my parents.”

Yasha laughs. “Antonia, I am many things, but a fool is not one of them,” he says, amused, reaching out to run his fingers through her unbound hair. Something falters in his expression. “Your father already thinks I raped you. I don’t want to push him.”

Antonia grips his forearm. “You are _not_ my rapist,” she says, fiercely, thinking of the Commander’s hungry eyes and hungry hands and the greedy-hot look in his eyes as he’d groped her and assaulted her. “You aren’t…” she shoots him a baleful look. “I know what evil looks like, I know what monsters are, just as much as you do,” she says, coldly. “And you could never be that.”

Yasha’s pale eyes are soft and sour. “ _Malina moya_ , you are too good to me,” he rumbles.

Antonia rolls her eyes. “I am perfect for you,” she corrects, sternly. “Just as you are perfect for me.”

“Yes, you are,” Yasha agrees, a smile curling his lips.

The door swings open and Antonia and Yasha turn into the light.

“ _Mija_ ,” Maria declares, delighted, when she sees her hovering in the doorway, with Yasha. “And James. Oh, it’s so good that you’re here.”

Maria throws her arms around her; it still takes her a moment to stifle the panic, before cautiously wrapping her own arms around her mother.

“Maria,” she says, as kindly as possibly – it doesn’t come easy to her (kindness wasn’t one of her lessons).

Maria’s jaw clenches just the slightest, but she hides it well. She grips Antonia’s chin, before planting a kiss between her eyes.

“Look at you,” she sighs. “So beautiful. Come, come, come inside. Dinner is almost ready, and I have people I would like you to meet.”

Maria turns on her heels, long and imposing, and sweeps off inside, leaving Antonia staring at Yasha helplessly.

“I can’t do this,” she says, immediately.

Yasha sighs in fond exasperation. “Antonia,” he says, firmly.

“Yasha,” she returns in exactly the same tone.

“Go,” he urges.

“I can’t,” she insists. She huffs, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m not good at pretending to be human.”

Yasha laughs, low. “You are good at pretending to be anything. _Go_ , _malina moya_.”

Antonia shoots him a look, her neck tinged pink in some vague Pavlovian reaction. “I thought you said you wouldn’t call me that here,” she hisses.

Yasha grins. “I wanted to see if you’d blush,” he says, smugly. “I was right, you did.”

Antonia fixes him with a dark look. “You know what, I don’t think I’ll suck your cock when we get home tonight.”

Yasha pouts. “That seems like an entirely unreasonable response to an entirely reasonable game.”

But nonetheless, he links his hand with hers as they step over the threshold.

* * *

Stark Manor is an imposing thing, made of pale stone that seems more cold than intimate, but it’s beautiful, nonetheless. Antonia’s grip around Yasha’s hand tightens.

“You have a lovely home,” Yasha says, politely.

Antonia eyes him, wondering where that came from.

Maria smiles, satisfied, dark eyes gleaming. “Why, thank you, James,” she says, sweetly. “You’re so sweet to say such things.”

 _No,_ Antonia thinks, amused. _He’s a ballsy little shit determined to make you forget the fact that he’s fucking your daughter._

Maria sighs and reaches for Antonia’s hand with easy, unthinking familiarity that surprises her, heart stuttering in her ribcage. “Come, there are many people here that I want the two of you to meet,” she insists.

Antonia exchanges a look with Yasha, who simply lifts an eyebrow in response. Antonia scowls – _you are of no use_ , she thinks, viciously.

“You didn’t ask us to come here under false pretences, did you?” she asks her mother, half-concerned and half-sly.

Maria blinks, owlishly, at her, but Antonia has played the pup for entirely too long to believe it in someone else.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Antonia’s mother says, loftily.

Maria leads them into the lounge, where Howard awaits on one of the chaises, a glass of whisky in hand. When Howard spots their entrance, he stumbles to his feet. The look he gives Yasha is nothing short of ugly, but it turns into something pathetically earnest when they set on Antonia.

She gives him a fierce, cold look in return.

_Not him. Leave him be._

She makes a demand of it, and his jaw clenches, as he looks away.

“God, Howard,” Peggy sighs, coming around the side of the couch. “Get a bloody grip.” Peggy reaches for her, pulling her into an embrace. “Hello, love, look at you. Don’t you look nice? Maria, isn’t she beautiful?”

Antonia’s flushes from hairline to collarbone at the painless compliment.

Maria’s thin hand grips her shoulder. “She is so very beautiful,” she says, her voice low and intimate, her eyes wide and maudlin in the way she looks at her daughter.

Antonia’s stomach twists in discomfort, but she manages her own gargoyle smile in reply, hoping against hope that they won’t see through the veneer. Yasha’s hand tightens around hers, his thumb running back and forth over the bone in her wrist.

Something in her ribs loosens.

“You said you had people for us to meet?” Antonia pushes, ducking her head.

Maria’s eyes widen and she releases Antonia, clapping her shoulders. “Yes, yes, I did. Jarvis, Jarvis, you might as well drop what you’re doing in the kitchen and come and join us.”

“Mrs Stark, I’m afraid the turkey won’t stand the loss of me,” a pleasant, male voice calls out from what Antonia imagines is the kitchen.

Maria laughs, warm and bright. “Jarvis, while I fully believe you are so indispensable, I am quite certain you will find what’s waiting for you in the lounge much more interesting.”

Howard scowls, the stuff of legends right there. “For fuck’s sake, Jarvis, get out here!”

A sigh resounds from the kitchen, and out comes a man with a thick head of greying hair and kind, pale eyes. He has a dishtowel in his hands, which he promptly throws over his shoulder, and his steps slow, his eyes falling onto Antonia.

“Oh,” he says, quietly.

For some strange reason, Antonia wants to stare at her feet.

Maria practically vibrates beside her.

“Antonia, meet Edwin Jarvis, he’s our butler. Jarvis,” Maria clenches and unclenches her hands, as if she can’t believe this is happening. “Jarvis, this is Antonia.”

Jarvis’ eyes twinkle like starlight, as he takes her hands in his. He has strong, clean, age-worn features, and her stomach tumbles restlessly, flooding with warmth.

There’s a knot in her throat.

“Hello, Miss Antonia,” he says, fond and rueful. “I’m so glad you’ve come home to us.”

The Engineer ( _no, Antonia, she is Antonia now_ ) shakes. “Hello, Jarvis,” she stammers.

Strange, she’s never stammered before.

She doesn’t know how she knows it, she shouldn’t know it, she thinks, but she was always meant to know this man, he was always meant to be a part of her.

 _Oh,_ she realises and shakes.

His brow knits together, worried. “Miss Antonia?”

She cages it, the weakness, and gives him an almost calf-like smile. “It’s nothing, just… I was just thinking about…” she closes her eyes. When she opens them next, they’re clear. “It doesn’t matter.” She smiles like sunshine. “It’s so very good to meet you.”

His thin, strong fingers clutch at hers. “I’m so happy you’re here,” he says, with no hint of a lie.

“Me too,” she replies and feels surprise for it. She pinks in embarrassment.

His lips twitch. “Shall I get you a drink, miss?” he asks, kindly.

Antonia flushes. “Just a glass of water, I think. My throat’s a little dry.”

“Very well. Let me get that for you-”

“No, wait!” Antonia rushes out.

He blinks with surprise.

“I’ll come with you,” she says, shyly. “I’d, uh, I’d love to see the turkey.” She rubs the back of her neck.

God, she’s killed dictators and presidents and queens, yet she feels dumb and illegible in front of this one man.

Yasha must be laughing at her.

“Oh!” she exhales. She grapples behind her until she’s fisting her hand in Yasha’s shirt, pulling him forwards. “My soulmate, uh…”

She’s never quite sure how to introduce him – she thinks she might peck out of the eyes of anyone who dared to call him _Yasha._

“James Barnes,” Yasha answers, smoothly, still quiet, still careful, a hint of that old-world charm that he shows to no one but her.

Jarvis smiles, faintly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Sergeant Barnes.”

“James,” Yasha corrects, solemn as the grave, rigid with discomfort. “Call me James.”

Jarvis’ brow knits together, before it smoothens out, an unbearably soft look in his eyes. “Very well, James.”

Yasha’s hand finds the slope of her hip, fingers dragging back and forth, when he catches Howard looking and scowling, almost defiantly.

Fuck, she loves this man more than anything, she thinks.

“ _Nadoelo_ ,” he mutters in her ear.

She directs a look at her soulmate through her lashes. _You, zaichik, you are playing with fire._ Her lip curls, satisfied. _I think I will suck your cock when we get home._

Jarvis breaks the silence. “So, water?”

Antonia’s grin is all teeth. “Yes, water.”

* * *

“ _Mija_ ,” Maria says, breathlessly, rushing into the kitchen, where Antonia was happy enough to climb onto one of the benches and chat to a cooking Jarvis, a glass of wine in her hand, while Yasha lingers at her side, listening quietly. “ _Mija_ , our guest is here. Come and meet him.”

Antonia doesn’t know why she looks at Jarvis, this man she’s known for hours at best, but there’s this new, hungry, perhaps stupid side to her and she can’t help herself.

He seems kind, kinder than any other man she’s ever known, even Yasha, who hurt her from time to time, so long ago, even if he’d have cut his own hand off before realising what he was doing to her.

He reminds her of Peggy; perhaps this is what she turns to now, in this life, with no commander, no HYDRA, no handler, no chair, no cell, just Yasha; perhaps, she turns to kindness now.

“You should go, Miss Antonia,” he urges, gently, wiping his hands dry with the dishtowel. “This is a guest you should meet.”

Antonia jumps off the counter. She looks at Yasha.

“You go,” he tells her, ever-sombre, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “I’ll be here.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Your man will be as intact as you see him now when you return, miss,” Jarvis says, with dry amusement.

Antonia finds herself grinning. “Fine.”

Yasha nudges his nose against hers, breathing against the curve of her mouth. “Be brave, _malina moya_.”

Antonia scowls absolute murder. His smile is nothing but a joke, and she rolls her eyes, swinging around such that her hair flips against his face, the magnificent tumble striking him.

“What does that mean?” Maria asks, curiously. “ _Malina moya_?”

Antonia’s face floods red.

Maria doesn’t understand.

* * *

“Meet Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes; he’s Stark Industries’ liaison to the military,” Maria says, proudly, fondly.

James Rhodes is tall with dark skin and kind, dark eyes, hair cleanly shorn against his skull. He stretches out a hand for her to shake, and she takes it cautiously, still unaccustomed to casual touch.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” she says, allowing a smile to graze her mouth.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” James says, gently. “I was happy to hear you’re not dead.”

Antonia cocks her head, her smile growing authentically.

James closes his eyes, flushing. “I mean, I didn’t know you before you didn’t die the first time-”

Antonia laughs, bright as starlight.

“Shit,” James hisses. He shakes his head. “I’m just really glad you’re alive.”

Antonia bites her lip. “You’re cute,” she decides.

She likes this one.

* * *

**1997**

“I can’t believe you dragged me into this,” Yasha grumbles, as they slip into a booth at the only local bar.

“I call it, _playing local_ ,” Antonia says, cheerfully. “It’s a necessary roleplay, and you know it.”

“I was really happy in our house, not talkin’ to anyone,” Yasha points out, the Brooklyn of a faded accent slipping into his voice now.

She falters.

“You talk to people,” Antonia clucks her tongue.

Yasha snorts. “Yeah, I ask my boss when he plans on _payin’_ me, doll,” he says, dryly. “I ain’t a cornucopia of conversation.”

Antonia’s throat works ( _doll_ , he doesn’t say that often) and she sighs, resting her chin on her upturned palm. “The fact that you used _cornucopia_ in a sentence only proves my point.”

He shoots her a baleful glance, much to her amusement.

“Do you want a drink?” she asks, fluttering her long, thick lashes at him.

“It doesn’t work on us, remember?”

“I remember, but it doesn’t mean we can’t pretend it works,” Antonia points out, nudging him in the side.

“Why?” Yasha scrunches up his face, adorable to her eyes.

“Well,” she leans in, watching him with hungry eyes. “Hypothetically, we get a little tipsy, we go out onto the dancefloor, we dance a little, real close-like, and I rub up against you, and you fuck me in one of those bathrooms over there.”

“Is everythin’ about sex with you?” Yasha complains, his throat working. “I’m kind of feelin’ like a piece of meat.”

Antonia laughs, breathlessly. “You know you like it.” She taps the booth table to a tune she’d listened to on the radio (she likes music now, all that heavy bass and sharp melody in her ears, it makes her feel alive). “Now, what do you want from the bar?”

Yasha grunts, only half-displeased at this point. “A beer, then. If I must,” he says, grudgingly, and a Russian lilt thickens his voice. “If I can’t get vodka.”

Antonia rolls her eyes, patting him on the cheek. “You poor baby.”

She slinks out of the booth, feeling his pale, hot eyes on the sway of her hip, all the way up to the bar, where she orders two beers with a faux smile, finger twisting in a lock of her hair.

The bartender is quite prompt with her order, and she lifts the glasses, turning on her feet.

On her way back, she’s waylaid by a stocky man, tall and thick with muscle, a lazy, hungry look to him.

“Hey, baby.”

Antonia narrows her eyes and offers nothing in response.

“Can I take one of those beers off your hands?” he asks, smoothly. “Maybe keep you some company.”

Antonia lifts her chin. “I have all the company I need,” she says, sternly.

“Don’t be like that, honey,” the man croons, one giant paw landing on her arm.

Antonia’s eyes snap to the unwelcome touch, her skin crawling, and then to where Yasha watches them, a cold, empty, flat look to his eyes, more Winter Soldier than her Yasha.

Something clenches hot in her belly.

“Take your hands off me,” she says, patiently, kinder than she should be.

The commander’s black, gleaming gaze floods into her vision, and she clenches her fist.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere and talk for a bit.”

“She said to take your hands off her,” Yasha says, his voice sharp, as he slinks over.

The man glowers at Yasha. “Who the fuck are you?”

Yasha is pale and taut in his rage, but manages a smile nonetheless, a sharp, lethal thing across his face. “Her soulmate,” he answers, thinly.

The man scoffs. “So?” he narrows his eyes. “No one gives a shit about soulmates anymore. If the lady wants to stay with me, she can stay with me.”

“The lady doesn’t want to stay with you,” Antonia interjects. “And she’d like to remind you that she asked you, very politely, mind you, to let go of her.”

The man stares down at her, hungry and self-centred and self-satisfied. She imagines he was a vicious, proud little child, full of venom and full of hate and full of rage when he didn’t get what he wanted.

“If you’re afraid of him, it’s okay,” he answers, stupidly. “I’m not, and I can take care of you.”

“You shouldn’t be afraid of him, yes,” Antonia agrees.

Yasha waits, still quiet, still careful.

The man’s friends surround them, waiting for a show.

“You should be afraid of me,” she says, sadly, and slams the edge of her elbow hard enough into his nose that she hears bone crack.


	4. iv.

The man cries out, “shit!”, and stumbles back, the hot, tight hold of his hand on her fading and cooling. He flushes blotchy pink, from collar to hairline, at the tinkling laughs from some of the booths, and swells up like an apoplectic frog, looking as though he’d peel the skin from her flesh for the embarrassment if he could.

She cocks her head, remembering Margaret Atwood’s words: _men are afraid women will laugh at them, while women are afraid men will kill them._

She shakes her head; what a sad world this is.

“You fucking bitch,” he snarls at her like a rabid dog. “Why’d you hit me?”

“Because I told you, multiple times, to stop groping me.” She shrugs. “You refused to heed my warnings; what happened next, whatever the consequences were, were not my sins.”

The man grunts, clutching at his bleeding nose. “Mouthy little cunts like you need to be put in their place,” he threatens, big hand curling into a big fist, as his thuggish friends step forward, ready to defend his honour, much to Antonia’s amusement.

 _Put sheep next to wolves, and you get a bloodbath_ , she thinks, fond and rueful, shaking her head.

And a bloodbath is what she gets.

It’s not what she wants.

The man tries to return the blow, but Yasha intervenes, making quick work of him and his friends. When one of his friends tries to slip past, hands clenching and unclenching around air as if he’d wring her throat, Antonia reacts, kneeing him between the legs before punching him right in the jaw, with enough force that he hits the ground.

In a different world, where they weren’t trying to make this quaint little town their home (a faux home, but perhaps one day, a real one), her pride would have demanded something a little more elaborate – she might have dealt a roundhouse kick to his stupid face and knocked loose some brain matter in the process. 

When the men are groaning on the floor, clutching bruised and bleeding body parts, Antonia’s hand clamps tight around Yasha’s wrist and she tugs him away from the scene, pulling him into the chill of the night, panting heavily.

Rage floods up like lava when she rounds on him, meets his cold and clean and clear eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she growls.

Yasha lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“What is wrong with you?” she cries.

“I was protecting you.”

“I don’t need _protecting_ ,” she spits.

The thought is aberrant to her.

As much as he is a great killer of men and women in this world, so is she.

So is _she_.

“He was pawing at you,” Yasha says, viciously, a flood of colour, rage, in his pale face. “Was I supposed to be okay with that?”

“I don’t need you to _avenge_ my honour,” she says, disgusted. “If I wanted to break his wrist, I could’ve.”

“Then, why didn’t you?”

Antonia throws her hands up in the air. “Because I didn’t want to cause a riot,” she shakes her head. “which I spectacularly failed in,” she mutters.

“You’re my soulmate,” he snaps. “It’s my _job_ to protect you. It’s the only thing worthwhile in this life, do you understand me?”

“No, no, I don’t understand you.” Antonia clenches her fists, nails digging half-moons in her palms. “You’ve never reacted like that before. Many men have done the same, many men have done worse, and you’ve done nothing. And some townie drunk in Philadelphia is what gets your blood running. _Bullshit_.”

“What do you want me to say?” he all but roars, and Antonia’s glad for the heavy thump and melody of the music inside.

She lifts her chin. “I don’t care what sort of forties sensibilities have managed to bleed through for you, but don’t go thinking they’ll work with me.”

It’s cruel, she knows it, and his face folds in hurt.

She’s a bitch; she’s not made for human consumption; a tragic suburban life is not for her (maybe it is for _him_ , but they are one soul in two bodies, and how can that be?).

Maybe she holds him back.

Maybe he is owed this.

He has a life, a life he can seize and keep, and all she has is ghosts.

All she is, is an actress.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You dream, you dream, and you don’t _tell_ me about it!” she exclaims, her voice thin and taut, her eyes edged now with tears. “How am I supposed to know? You hide from me, Yasha. Everything about Bucky Barnes, you hide from me.”

Yasha’s face folds in hurt, white as milk. “That’s-that’s not true,” he flounders.

“It is, it _is_ ,” Antonia insists. “That part of you is not mine, and you don’t want me to have it.”

Yasha fists his hands in his hair, staring at her thin-mouthed and brooding. “That part of me is not _about_ you, _malina moya_ ,” he grits out. “You wouldn’t-you don’t… you don’t understand.”

“So, make me understand,” Antonia all but pleads. “Explain it to me. Tell me what’s going on. Just, just don’t hide from me.”

_All I have in this world is you, Yasha. If you turn on me, what do I have? What am I?_

Yasha’s face crumples, before it sets in a defensive slant. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”

Yasha walks away.

Antonia can’t breathe.

* * *

She’s already cold when she slips into a colder bed.

Yasha isn’t there; she won’t ever acknowledge how much that hurts.

She was something, someone, before Yasha, wasn’t she?

It’s still cold.

Yasha slips in, hours later, stinking of beer and blood and cigarette smoke. She doesn’t know where he’s been, what he’s done, but when he reaches for her, she stays as still as a corpse.

“Antonia,” he whispers.

He rarely calls her _Antonia_ ; it startles her.

“I dream about him,” he murmurs into the smooth skin of her shoulder. “Steve.”

The breath leaves her in a wracked gasp.

“Oh,” she says, lamely.

“We’re always so young,” Yasha says, wistfully. “There are always smiles, and the sun is always shining. And then, he dies. He’s dead now.”

Antonia’s hand shakes.

“He was my best friend,” he goes on. “My greatest friend, and he’s dead now. I loved him, and I will never see him again.” He exhales. “Maybe the chair was a blessing.”

She flinches, remains silent.

“I love you,” Yasha says, finally. “I love you like I have never loved anything else, even Steve Rogers. I loved you then, I love you now, and even when I am dead, I will love you, but I can’t talk about Steve with you. Not yet, not when I don’t know him myself. Can you understand that? Can you not hate me for it?”

He looks at her, pale eyes shadowed with dread, and she touches his cheek then.

“I could never hate you,” she says and turns her head the other way.

* * *

The next morning, she packs a bag and silently escapes to Peggy Carter’s house.

She leaves a note on the dining table.

* * *

“I can’t say I’m not glad you came to visit me,” Peggy says, dropping two teacups in front of them with a clatter onto saucers. “But may I ask what provokes the visit?”

Antonia shrugs, almost sullenly. “Can’t I want to come and see my godmother?” she says, smoothly.

Peggy narrows her dark eyes. Antonia doesn’t shy away from her unflinching gaze. Even in age, Peggy Carter is the most fearsome woman Antonia has ever come across, and she has murdered men at dinner with his children.

“I don’t think you’ve ever called me that,” Peggy drawls. “I don’t think you’ve ever acknowledged what I am to you.”

Antonia fingers the rim of the teacup. “I’m not good with that,” she says, awkwardly. “Family, friends, I don’t… I don’t understand it well. I don’t take it to easily.”

Peggy’s face softens. “That’s not your fault, love.”

“I know,” she says, firmly, staring down at her hands. “I know that, but he does it better than me, you know, and I… am struggling with that.”

“You mean James?” Peggy guesses, putting her cup aside. “Well, that makes sense. He had a life before he was taken.”

“And I’ve never had anything but HYDRA,” Antonia says, with bile, sour and thick in her throat.

“Love,” Peggy sighs.

The smile she gives her godmother is thin with grief. “You don’t need to comfort me,” she says, quietly. “I know the truth.”

“You’re jealous,” Peggy decides.

Antonia frowns. “Yes, I think so.” She licks her lips. “I don’t know who I am and it… it… it sucks,” she finishes, heavily. “It’s awful. I write on paper, I am Antonia Stark, and I look up, and I’m the Engineer again. I don’t want to be _either_!”

She glares down at the table with enough heat that she thinks it might split in two under her anger.

“But he knows,” she grits out. “Yasha, James, Bucky, whatever you want to call him. He _knows_. And…”

_And I hate him for it._

It curdles her stomach like sour milk.

“You resent him for having a life before you,” Peggy says, quietly.

“No,” she says, truthfully. “I resent him for having a life I can’t touch, won’t touch, and will never have for myself. I resent him for being the only… the only… fucking monument I have in this universe.”

“You have parents,” Peggy reminds her, gently. “You have Jarvis, who already loves you, and you have me and Sharon. You’re not some… wanderer amongst the stars, love.”

 _Sometimes, I think I might be happier that way_ , Antonia thinks and immediately, her face folds in torment.

That was wrong; that was unkind of her to think.

She has Yasha, that should be enough.

“I have parents, yes,” she says, dully. “But I don’t know them. They’re strangers, and at best, kind strangers.”

“They love you,” Peggy says, and it’s almost a chide.

“I don’t _know_ them,” Antonia snaps. “And they… they look at me like they need me to be something more.” She lurches to her feet. “I _can’t_ be something more. Everyone wants me to be something else, my parents, you, even Yasha. I’m not, I’m not, I’m sorry but I’m not something _more_. I’m just _me_ ,” she grinds her teeth. “and Antonia is a lie.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Peggy sighs, reaching for her.

Antonia allows her to touch her hand, thread their fingers together, even though she’s shaking, even though if she lost control, she could topple the table, break walls, break wood, break Peggy in half ( _no, she is not a knife in the dark, she is no one’s knife, the commander is dead and his body, he is nothing now, and Peggy is a friend, Peggy is a friend, she won’t hurt her, she’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her_ ).

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply I think you owe them, _anyone_ , anything. You don’t,” Peggy says, firmly. “You can choose who you want to be, Antonia. That’s your right, and anyone who says differently can go fuck themselves, the fucking troglodytes.”

Antonia grins despite herself. 

“I’m sad that you think you have no one in your corner, love,” she continues. “Jarvis loves you; I love you and Sharon thinks you are very cool. And from what I can see, James loves you more than there are stars in the sky.”

“What if love isn’t enough?” Antonia asks, quietly.

“Then, you will find something else to keep it standing, keep _you_ standing,” Peggy says, gently. “If it’s not love, it’ll be something else.”

Antonia licks her lips and sighs. “I want to find it, I want to… keep standing,” she says, evenly.

“You will,” Peggy says, with all faith.

“You knew him, before.” Antonia drinks some of her tea. “Yasha.”

“I did,” Peggy replies, blinking. “He was… cocky, but kind. Brave. Strong. Always quick to smile. He and Steve loved each other very much.”

“What was he like?”

“James?”

“No, Steve.” Antonia raises her eyes.

Peggy’s face folds in torment. “Oh, Steve. Steve was… oh, he was kind, good, strong, and he was all of those things before he got the serum. His body just matched his mind then.”

Antonia looks down at her hands. The veins are sharp. “I wish I could’ve known him,” she muses. “For Yasha, at least.”

“He was a good person, the best I’ve ever known,” Peggy replies, thickly.

 _You still love him_ , Antonia thinks but won’t ever speak the words.

“There are parts of Yasha I will never touch,” Antonia eases out. “Steve is one of them.”

“Yes, I imagine so,” Peggy says, bluntly. “But you have your own parts that James will never touch. Just because you have his name on your wrist and he has yours, doesn’t mean you owe each the entirety of your existences. Antonia, you’re allowed to be Antonia without him, and he’s allowed to be James or Yasha or whatever he chooses to call himself without you.”

“He doesn’t have to _owe_ anything to me, I just…” she huffs. “I just wish he’d talk to me,” she admits, sadly.

“Maybe he doesn’t know what to say,” Peggy points out. “Give him time. Let him find Steve and his old life himself, and he’ll come to you with stories. This isn’t the end of you two, this isn’t the thing that breaks you, Antonia. Don’t let it become that.”

“I won’t, I would _never_ ,” Antonia says, all fire and strength. “I’m angry, I’m hurt, I’m terrified, yes, but I won’t lose him, not over anything. I mean… he’s Yasha,” she finishes lamely.

Peggy squeezes her hand. “You won’t lose him. That boy would follow you everywhere.”

“I would follow him everywhere too,” she says, shyly.

Peggy’s smile grows teeth. “I know.” She hesitates for an agonising moment. “You can walk away, you know.”

The words startle Antonia into an odd little noise. “What?”

“It’s not a sin to look at your life and think, _fuck, I need a break_ ,” Peggy says, firmly. “You and James have been tangled together for all your life. If you need to walk away, you can, both of you. Just make sure, if you’re going to come back, and I can’t imagine a universe when you wouldn’t come back, make sure you let each other know that.”

“Is that what you did, with Daniel?” Antonia asks, quietly.

Peggy sighs and leans back in her chair, a rueful look taking form on her face. “Ah,” she exhales. “I am not a woman made for baking apple pies and serving my husband a finger or two of scotch after dinner, as many of my contemporaries did. I knew that as a child, and if it brought them joy and contentment, God bless them, but it never brought anything like that to me. I loved him, Daniel, I did, rest his soul. I loved him like I loved nothing else, even Steve, because he was a man I _chose_. I’m markless, you see,” she gives Antonia a sour smile. “But sometimes, I’d take a look at our life here, in this house, and I was glad we had no children because I wanted to fist my hands in my hair and scream like a banshee until the walls of my house fell around me.”

“What did you do after?” Antonia asks, curiously.

“Oh, well, I went and punched things; a lot of the time, it was stupid, evil people until I was exhausted, and I wanted to go home to bed with my husband.”

Antonia cracks a smile. “We got into a fight, not an argument, but a fight-fight with these… troglodytes, as you say… in a bar.”

Peggy lifts an eyebrow; her dark eyes gleam with interest. “Oh?” she says, amused.

“It wasn’t… there was this guy, he put his hand on my arm, wanted me to go away with him. I said no, I said I wasn’t interested, and I had company already, he wouldn’t let go.”

“And you’re not a woman who just _lets_ a guy _not let go_ ,” Peggy finishes.

“Well, normally, yes,” Antonia huffs. “But Yasha got involved, and I was worried.”

“Of what James might do?” Peggy asks.

Antonia smiles, thinly. “You know James, you remember James as Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s right-hand man, a proficient sniper, a member of the Howling Commandos. I imagine, as Director of SHIELD, you have seen pictures, documentation, of what we are capable of, him and I, the Winter Soldier and the Blessed Engineer. But I know the Winter Soldier, I have wanted the Winter Soldier long before he became Yasha, James Barnes, anything you or I want to call him. I have seen him kill. I know the sight better than I know what I can do. So, yes, I was worried about what Yasha might do.”

Peggy leans forward, a picture of concern. “Are you afraid of him?”

 _Oh, Peggy, I am no victim in this scenario_ , she thinks, fondly.

Antonia laughs, bright and proud. “Not in the least. He’d kill himself a hundred times over before he’d hurt me, and I’d hurt him first.”

“So, you were protecting the innocent townspeople from his rage, then.”

Antonia snorts. “I’d hardly consider that pig person an innocent townsperson and hardly worth of my protection. No, I thought… well, it might ruin what we were trying to build there. So, I may have elbowed him in the face,” she says, sheepishly.

Peggy laughs. “Good.”

“And then of course, he had thugs with him, who tried to make some trouble. Yasha took care of them, and we left, but…”

“… that’s when you started fighting with him.” Peggy does a sad little shake of his head. “Adrenaline is a sad and funny thing.” She pats Toni’s hand. “It’ll work out, you know.”

Antonia lifts her eyes. “How do you know, Peggy?”

“Hm, well, love, twenty-seven years ago, a baby girl, my goddaughter, disappeared from her hospital incubator a week after being born. Two years ago, she landed on my doorstep with a man I had thought dead for decades, who was her soulmate, as it happens. So, you ask me how I know it’ll work? It’ll work because you defy everything that I had ever thought was a fact of the universe, and I think you will continue to do so until you die. That’s how I know.” Her mouth quirks in a half-smile. “Liberate your life, love. Own it, earn it. And destroy everything and anything that tries to take it from you. It’s yours, and yours alone.”

Antonia gives her a measured look. “You are singularly formidable; do you know that?”

Peggy shrugs, amused. “I’ve been told before. So,” her face twists into something sly. “I heard you made a friend.”

“Well…” Antonia drawls, a little embarrassed. “I suppose.”

“Tell me about him,” Peggy urges.

“His name is James Rhodes, he’s the military liaison for Stark Industries. Air Force.”

“Ah,” Peggy smiles. “A flyboy.”

“He’s very nice,” she offers. “And we sometimes have lunch together. It’s like,” she says, wistfully. “It’s like we were meant to meet. Not like how I feel about Yasha, of course, but something just as righteous.” She nods to herself, remembers the way her skin prickles in James Rhodes’ presence and thinks, _yes, he is important_. “It’s like how I felt with Jarvis.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I’m insane,” she says, ruefully.

“Nonsense,” Peggy snorts. She hesitates for an agonising moment. “Antonia, I know it seems… difficult, maybe even pointless. But everything you think Yasha has, you can have to. It might come slower than it does for him, but it will come.” She pats her hand. “You are not an easy woman to turn away from.”

Her nails dig half-moons into her palms.

_I’m alive out of spite. You overestimate my kindness and misjudge my rage, my hunger._

* * *

“Are you gonna live with us forever?” Sharon asks her, unobtrusively.

Antonia blinks down at her. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” Sharon’s face falls. “Can you?” she asks, hopefully.

Antonia manages a half-hearted smile. “You’d get sick of me pretty quickly.”

Sharon shakes her head. “No, I wouldn’t. You do face masks with me, and you taught me how to pick locks. Aunt Peggy said she wouldn’t show me how to do that until I was _fourteen_ , can you believe it?” she rolls her eyes. “You should stay. The three of us would have so much fun.”

Antonia smooths a hand over Sharon’s pale-gold hair. “I bet we would,” she says, wistfully.

“Is it because of James?” Sharon guesses, climbing onto the couch beside her to rest her head against Antonia’s arm. “Do you miss him?”

_I miss his heart, his eyes, his tongue, his hands, his cock. I miss him and everything in him and everything about him. He hasn’t come for me. Has he set me aside?_

“I do,” she admits.

“And that’s why you want to leave,” Sharon accuses.

Antonia laughs, surprised herself by the bright, hard edge of the sound. “No, Sharon, I don’t want to leave.”

“So, stay, Toni,” Sharon urges.

She startles. _Toni. Toni. Toni,_ a raven caws behind her eyes.

She presses a hand low against her belly, which twists and aches, like she’s about to start bleeding for the month.

It feels right.

Her smile could cut like a knife.

“It’s not that easy,” Toni bites her lip. “Maybe, when you meet your Virginia, you’ll understand.”

Sharon screws up her face. “I don’t want a soulmate if it means I have to leave Aunt Peggy,” she grumbles.

Toni sighs, threading her fingers through Sharon’s hair. “You might feel different in a couple of years. Now, come, I’ll show you how to trip a circuit breaker.”

“Can you show me how to make a bomb?” Sharon asks, excitedly.

Toni dwells on it. “When you’re older,” she says, vaguely.

* * *

Yasha comes for her a week later.

He knocks on the door, and it’s Toni who answers it.

“Hi,” he says, offering her a half-smile.

“Hi,” she replies, cautiously.

Yasha shoves his hands in his jeans’ pockets. “How are you, _malina moya_?”

“Sad, and depressing!” Sharon shouts from inside.

Toni drags a hand over her face, but Yasha’s expression has crumpled.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, shaking his head.

“Yasha,” Toni sighs.

“I upset you, I made you sad and you left. I didn’t… I don’t ever want you to leave, _carevna_ ,” he insists, voice thick. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything, about my nightmares, about Steve. You should stay, if you want-want _me_ to go, I’ll go, I’ll go, but please, Antonia, _milaya moya_ , don’t go, don’t leave.”

“Yasha,” Toni reaches for him, gripping his shoulders. “Yasha, oh, Yasha.”

“Don’t go? Please,” Yasha whispers, tucking his face against her neck.

Toni’s hand reaches for the nape of his neck, threading her fingers through his hair. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not, I’m _not_.” She presses her forehead to his. “And you don’t have to tell me anything, Yasha, not if you’re not ready. And when you’re ready, _if_ you’re ready, you can tell me then. Not now, not when you think I’m going to leave you. I don’t want that between us; it’ll twist into hate sooner or later, I know it will, and I don’t want hate for us. So, you’ll stay and I’ll stay, and one day, when you’re ready, you can tell me everything you want to tell me.”

Yasha’s hands tighten on her waist. “I will, I will, but you’re coming home, right?”

“No, she’s not!” Sharon shouts. “She’s staying with us forever. You can come too, I guess.”

Toni growls, looking over her shoulder. “Sharon, stop interrupting.”

“I can’t help it! You’re too loud, and you’re saying all the wrong things, Toni!”

Yasha lifts a bemused eyebrow. “Toni?”

Toni flushes hotly. “Yeah, she decided to give me a nickname.” She looks up at him, shyly. “I think it suits me, don’t you think?”

Yasha smooths back her hair, fond. “Yeah, it does.”

He lifts her up, so she can wrap her legs around his hips for leverage and he can dip her low.

“Come home, _malina moya_ , come home,” he mutters against the pulse of her throat.

“I will, I want to come home,” Toni breathes. “I will.”

* * *

**1998**

“Are you sure about this?” Yasha asks, hands shaking at his side.

Toni rests her chin on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I think this is beautiful, and I am so proud of you.”

They stare up at this once-ramshackle warehouse, now turned boxing gym, for women and children only.

“I never thought we’d have something like this,” Yasha muses.

“ _Nikogda ne govori nikogda_ ,” she murmurs, threading her fingers through his air. _Never say never._ “Do we have a name?” Toni asks, curiously.

Yasha’s hands settle on hers, hovering just above his navel. He turns his head, nudging his nose against her cheek.

“Malina,” he says, slyly.

“I will kill you,” she decides.

* * *

“I love this place,” Peggy declares, looking around, bright and proud.

Yasha grins, fleetingly. “Oh?”

Peggy gives him a soft look. “Yes, James. I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing here, and I’m so proud of you, of both of you. Have you started thinking about classes, or how you’re going to train people?”

Toni and Yasha exchange a look.

“I have a friend,” Toni begins.

Peggy lifts an eyebrow. “A friend?” she teases.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Yes, I know. I have friends who aren’t my soulmate, my godmother, my parents’ butler, a military liaison to my father’s company, and a thirteen-year-old. Her name is Amy, she is a stay-at-home mother with two children, and I do a lot of fix-it work for her. She is grateful, and when I told her about Yasha opening up the gym, she was very excited. She said she’d wrangle all her friends into attending. The community here is small. They don’t have a proper gym, and especially not one for women and children only.”

Peggy frowns. “I like the idea of it being only for women and children, but do you think women will actually join, if they know it’s a man teaching them?”

“Well,” Yasha drawls. “I would require the assistance of my beautiful, competent soulmate.” His eyes are bright and enormous when he looks at her.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t hang you out to dry, Yasha.”

“Well, I’m on board, and I’m very excited for you,” Peggy says, kindly. “And anything I can do to help, I will.” She gets a wicked look on her face. “So, are either of you interested in showing me what you’re capable of?”

Toni and Yasha peer at each other.

“She’s my godmother. It would be wrong,” she says, sweetly.

Yasha sighs. “Fine, let’s get in the ring.”

* * *

“You guys are terrifying,” Amy says, breathlessly, shaking her head.

Toni laughs. “It was a good workout, yes?”

“Where’d you even learn how to fight like that?”

“We used to be assassins, Yasha and me,” Toni says, flatly.

Amy gapes at her, then laughs. “Come on, don’t joke, Antonia. What, did James used to box or something?”

Toni’s heart swells at how easily Amy waves aside the honest explanation. “Or something,” she says, half-heartedly.

“Well,” Amy sighs. “You guys just about killed me.”

 _If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be smiling so much_ , Toni thinks.

“So, a wine, then? After I shower, of course.” Amy points, threateningly.

 _Is this what it’s like to have friends?_ Toni wonders.

She smiles and nods, nonetheless.

* * *

The gym becomes popular, especially with the women of the town. Sometimes, the men come along, as if the gym is nothing but a front for Yasha to scheme and steal their women away from them (Toni understands; her soulmate is beautiful, but he only wants her, so the concept is laughable). The children join in too, and Toni delights in showing a group of six-year-olds how she can climb on top of Yasha with her thighs around her neck, and flip him onto the floor.

Amy is a frequent visitor, and she’s often joined by her garden club. Toni’s met the women before, at simple tea times in Amy’s house, and she’s always been unimpressed, their eyes and teeth flashing bright against their face, gliding past, elegant and haughty, staring her down like they find her wanting.

Toni’s known a million of these women, watched them to slip into their skins as easy as butter, and killed quite a few of them at dinner.

But they’re clever and they’re hungry and she imagines they want to see what Amy’s oddball neighbour is up to, or perhaps they just like to peer at her pretty soulmate, much to the hot blush that rises to Yasha’s face.

They turn as pallid as milk, though, when they see Toni and Yasha fight for the first time, and they see what she can do, what she’s capable of (only a sliver, of course; if they knew that she could break a man’s neck with a twist of a single hand and had actually done so, they’d run away screaming).

Today, though, Amy brings someone new.

She’s tall, Amy’s guest, and thin, with a magnificent fall of ginger hair over her shoulder.

“Toni!” Amy calls her down from the centre ring.

Toni climbs over the rope, jumping down and landing on her cat-feet.

“Meet my sister, Virginia,” Amy says, nudging Virginia forward.

Virginia rolls her eyes, accustomed to her sister’s brand of enthusiasm. “Hi,” she greets, pleasantly. “I’m Virginia Potts.”

Toni startles. _That’s Sharon’s soulmate_.

She recovers as quickly as possible.

“Antonia, Antonia Carbonnell,” she replies, shaking her hand.

When Virginia smiles, Toni feels something warm curl in her chest, in those hollow empty spaces in her heart and her ribs, and she thinks, _oh._


	5. v.

“Tell me about yourself,” Toni prompts.

Virginia blinks. She looks down at her thin wrists. “Oh, well, I’m a finance grad, actually, from MIT.”

“That sounds interesting,” Toni offers.

Numbers have always worked for her, like a nice, easy weapon to slip between her fingers.

“It didn’t work the way I wanted it to,” Virginia confesses.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I started working for this company, Pym Technologies, you might have heard of it?” Virginia continues when she sees Toni nod. “It just wasn’t what I thought it was. The people there, mostly, men, they spent most of the time looking at my legs or my breasts instead of listening to anything that I actually had to say.”

Toni grimaces. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“I know, right,” Virginia scoffs. She shakes her head, something forlorn to her expression. “They were all misogynistic dicks, so I left, but it was kind of difficult getting a job, at least in a place where I wanted to work, so I decided to come back home, stay with Amy for a bit, while I find a job here.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Toni offers, knowing that isn’t what she wants to hear.

Virginia’s smile is rueful and twisted. “Not what I had originally planned, but it’ll have to do.”

Toni stares down at her empty glass. “Funny how that happens,” she says, dryly.

Two men come near them, a little sway to their steps, sweating by their hairline, and Toni realises quickly that they’re drunk and full of lust, judging by the way their bloodshot eyes drag down her and Virginia’s bodies like they’re meat for sale.

There’s a knife strapped to her thigh and she grips it.

“What do you fine gentlemen want?” Toni asks, dryly.

“We just thought we’d buy you girls a drink, and maybe join you,” one of them slurs.

“And if we’re not interested?” Virginia asks, her voice cold as ice.

The men exchange an amused look.

“I’m sure we could persuade you,” the other cajoles.

Toni sighs. “I think you should move on.” She gives them a taut smile; she doesn’t want a repeat of 1997. “You’re not wanted here.”

“Oh, come on, baby, don’t be like that-”

The first man moves to touch her shoulder, but before he can do so, it’s Virginia who acts, fishing into her purse on the bar counter and brandishing a can of pepper spray at the men, much to Toni’s amusement and amazement.

“Don’t touch us,” she barks like a building crashing, a pinched, thin look to her face. “Fuck off, or I’ll mace you and you’ll be in the emergency room all night getting it out of your eyes, you fucking losers.”

The men exchange another look and laugh.

“Come on, beautiful, you don’t want to do that,” one of them coaxes, trying to divest Virginia of the mace.

The knife slips into Toni’s hand and she has it raised to his throat. “You should leave,” she says, patiently, everything hard and ugly in her face staring at him.

The man stares down at the gleam of the knife against his pulse, where the artery sits, pale as a wraith.

“You’re crazy,” he stammers.

“Maybe, there’s always a good chance,” Toni says, simply, eyes cool and sharp. “But if you and your friend don’t walk away, my hand might slip and that trip to the emergency room might become a trip to the morgue instead. You really want to risk it?”

“Fucking psycho bitch,” the man splutters out, purple in the face as a plum.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Virginia says, flatly. “And even if she chooses not to stab you, I _will_ fucking mace you. Now, fuck off.”

The other man grips his friend’s shoulder. “Come on, man, let’s go. It shouldn’t be this fucking hard to get laid.”

“For you, it will be,” Toni snorts. “Now, like my friend said, fuck off.”

The men scamper away, and Toni sighs, sliding the knife back to where it sits against the inside of her thigh.

“So, pepper spray, huh?” she says, casually.

Virginia leans back. “So, a knife, huh?” she retorts, in exactly the same tone.

Toni flashes her the edge of her smile, sharp and lethal, and this is how a friendship begins.

* * *

“How were drinks?” Yasha asks, spooning something that looks delicious and a smooth blend of cream-white, pale-pink and chocolate onto a plate.

“I call her Pepper now,” Toni explains, leaning her elbows on the counter, sticking her arse out, as her hips sway from side to side. “Now, what scrumptious treat have you made tonight?”

“Neapolitan cheesecake,” Yasha says, slicing a little onto his spoon for her to taste. “Here, try some.”

Toni closes her mouth around the spoon and moans at the burst of sweetness on her tongue. Her hand comes to clamp around his wrist and she licks the spoon clean.

“You are too good at this, _miláček_ ,” she purrs.

Many months ago, Yasha had woken up from a nightmare, sobbing against the hollow of her throat and nails clawing bloody trails down his naked thighs in an attempt to rid himself of the ice he was sure was crawling up his skin like a parasitic plants. He’d left her warm arms and the warm blankets and preferred the dark emptiness of the kitchen, when he’d picked up a cookbook by chance and started baking.

He’d like it like nothing else, and now, Yasha baked.

Toni marvels at it, the great Winter Soldier, the unconquerable fist of HYDRA, baking and baking well.

Toni pats her belly. Sometimes, she thinks he wants her fat. 

“You like it, huh?” Yasha murmurs.

“It’s very good,” Toni agrees.

“So, Pepper, huh?” Yasha continues. “Why call her Pepper?”

“We had some drunk men approach us at the bar,” Toni begins.

Yasha stills. “Oh?” he says, voice unassuming.

“Don’t,” Toni warns, cheerfully. “You know I can take care of myself and anyone else with me. _Anyway_ , these drunk men walked up and attempted to proposition us.”

“Did you stab them?”

Toni sighs. “I wanted to,” she admits. “But before I could do so, Virginia, or Pepper, as I now call her, pulled out a can of pepper spray and threatened to mace them.”

Yasha grins to himself.

“I wish I’d been there to see that,” he remarks.

“ _Then_ , I threatened to knife them in the throat, and they ran away. But, yes, now I call her Pepper.”

“You made a new friend,” Yasha teases her.

Toni glowers at him. “Don’t.”

“But you did,” he says, gleefully.

Toni turns away. “You’re so annoying,” she complains.

Thick, strong arms wrap around her waist, pulling her against a barrel of a chest, and he leans his chin against the dip in her shoulder. His hands slide under her shirt, spanning her warm side.

“I missed you, _malina moya_ ,” he says, roughly, nuzzling at her throat.

Toni chuckles. “I can imagine exactly what you missed.”

“Well, shall we make up for it?”

One of his big, deft hand slides into her leggings, between her thighs, finding her wet, and he slips two fingers up inside her.

“Shit,” she curses, legs shaking.

His thumb brushes her clit, and she gasps for breath.

“On the counter, on the counter,” she hisses, twisting around in his arms.

Yasha withdraws his hand, fingers gleaming with her slick, and lifts her onto the counter, beside the half-cut cake, which he shoots an uncertain look.

“Next to the cake?” he says, almost mournfully.

Toni gapes at him in disbelief. “I didn’t realise it was a prayer offering,” she says, dryly.

“It’s not, but…” he trails off.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Look, you have two choices here: you can return to cutting your cake, or you can fuck me on this counter. Which is it?”

Yasha’s eyes latch onto the olive line of her throat, her breasts, and groans, head falling onto her collarbone.

She likes it when he does that, when he rests his head against her collarbone, and she can run her hands through his hair and pulling him close so that he can hear the beat of her heart, and she can lean down and kiss his hair.

She doesn’t know where the urge comes from, but it feels right – she may have seen some woman doing it for her man and just memorised such a thing.

“Fucking it is,” he says, glumly.

Toni sighs. “Try to sound a little more excited, or I might just go and take care of myself.”

Yasha grumbles a little but divests himself of his shirt quick enough, revealing his lean, rippling muscle and the stretch of his abdomen. While his fingers make for the button on his jeans, Toni removes her shirt, revealing the red lacy bra she’d opted to wear today, instead of her more conventional, rudimentary cotton choices. She rolls up her skirt, revealing the matching scrap of lace between her thighs, with a damp streak across the middle, which she promptly kicks off her ankle.

She spreads her legs, heels resting on a drawer handle, so he can see everything that she has to offer. Her cunt is glistening, fluttering open, and she reaches between her legs to thumb her clit, sighing and exposing the lean line of her throat as she tips her head back.

When she looks up, Yasha has a hand around his cock, corkscrewing upwards.

“You look so sweet, _carevna_.”

Toni scowls. “I am not a princess,” she repeats, tirelessly.

Yasha grins, bright and proud, settling between her thighs so she can feel the weight and length of him pressing up against her cunt.

“Can you be my princess, tonight?” he rumbles against her mouth.

Toni’s hand comes to thread through his hair. “Honey, do you think I could ever be a good little princess?” she asks, coyly.

“You’d be a terror,” Yasha laughs. His hand grips her thigh, so he can spread her wider for him. “But I’d rein you in.”

“Would you?” she asks, breathlessly, tipping her head back.

“Is that what you want, _malina moya?_ ” Yasha growls, swaying forward. “Do you want me to rein you in?”

“I want your cock,” Toni says, firmly. “Are you going to give it to me?”

Yasha gets a pleased look over his face. “Yes, I am.”

“Good,” Toni says, satisfied.

She peels down one strap of her bra and then the other. Her breasts fall free, the dark-brown of her nipples tightening under his hot gaze. She pinches it, sighing.

“Come on, Yasha, come on, I want you inside me.”

Yasha groans and surges against her. She leans between them to palm his cock, nudging it between her thighs, as he buries himself inside her.

“Don’t stop,” Toni pants, grappling for his shoulders.

Yasha mouths at her neck as he starts thrusting. Her body opens for him hungrily and he pounds into her with the sort of doggedness that she’d seen in him only on a mission, that grim, relentless look in his pale eyes, dragging over her soft breasts and lithe, firm body. Toni rolls her hips to meet his thrusts, and he digs his hands into the divots at the base of her spine. She shifts on the counter, at the blunt pressure of his cock pushing deep inside her, hooking her ankle over his hip, and he reaches between their bodies to rub slow, slick circles over the edge of her clit.

She comes like a seventy-car pileup, tightening up around him and leaving her limp and trembling. She watches as Yasha shakes on top of her, arching as he comes and she feels him pulse inside her, leaving her wet and messy between her legs.

Finally, he withdraws, flushed and panting, and she makes a sharp, high-pitched noise at the sensation, the hot-slick-messy slide of her cunt grasping at his cock and fluttering around nothing when he pulls away from her.

“Fuck,” he says, resoundingly.

Toni laughs, bright and proud.

Yasha grips her thigh, staring at the obscene sight between her spread thighs, the come shining across her skin, and the curve of her breasts. He groans.

“I think you may be the death of me.” He shakes his head.

Toni smiles, slow and languid. She reaches for him, and he comes into her arms so willingly, lifting her up so she can wrap her legs around his hips for leverage, his limp cock pressing up against her clit.

Arousal twists in her stomach.

“Shower?” she asks, breathlessly.

She grips his cock, which swells in her hand.

What is a refractory period to a super-soldier?

“Shower,” he agrees and practically runs for the bathroom.

* * *

That night, when Toni falls asleep, with James’ warm, heavy head in her lap, her hands in his hair, she dreams of death.

She dreams of dust.

She dreams of salt and stone.

She dreams of blood, red-black and thickening on her hands, on her breasts, on her throat, on her feet, on her thighs, between her legs.

She dreams of red eyes and crumbling, pale stone.

She dreams of a woman, half corpse, half devastatingly lovely.

A hand reaches for her, made of ash and slag and dead, rotting flesh, a sunless, diseased thing, and it flattens over Antonia’s belly.

 _Titankiller, godkiller, bl_ _oodletter, mother of monsters_ , the woman whispers to her.

She sounds like dirt, like love, like rage, like sorrow, like kindness, like satisfaction.

 _Earn your names, Antonia,_ the woman whispers and kisses her like a lover, like a mate.

The Engineer wakes up screaming.

Yasha falls off her lap with a startled noise.

Snakes writhe and bite in her belly, and when she looks down, her thighs are wet and slick with blood.

_Antonia Margaret Stark._

_Darling, dearest, dead._

* * *

**2001**

The phone rings.

Toni sighs, looking over her shoulder at the landline mounted against the wall.

“Do I have to?” she complains.

James laughs.

He’d started going by James; it was easier, in the long run, less obtrusive and cleaner, and after months and years, he’d even found it a creature comfort, his name but not his name, not as hungry and threatening as Bucky, but not as empty as anything else he could have chosen; oh, she still called him _Yasha_ , especially when they were in bed, but even Toni had grown used to it, quite liked it even.

“If it is any of the women we know, Pepper, Peggy, Amy, Sharon, Maria, hell, even Jarvis or Rhodes, they won’t stop calling until you answer,” he points out, smoothing a hand over her hair. “It’d probably be better off for us in the long run if you answer now.”

The phone rings again.

Toni rolls her eyes and jumps over the back of the couch, sauntering over to the landline.

“Hello, Antonia speaking,” she says, smoothly.

“Love, it’s me, Peggy.”

“Peggy,” Toni exclaims, brightly. “How are you? What’s going on?”

“Love, I need you to come in. You and James.”

Toni’s brow knits. “Come _in_?” she questions. “What are you talking about?”

Peggy’s voice turns strained. “Toni, darling, I can’t really explain on the phone. I’m going to give you an address, alright, and I need you and James to come to that address as soon as possible. Leave immediately.”

James is staring at her, concerned, the television grainy in the background.

“Peggy,” she begins, cautiously. “Is someone there with you?”

“Of course not,” Peggy huffs. “God, ducky, you know, you can be so melodramatic sometimes.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “Forgive me for being worried for your safety,” she snarks back.

“You’re forgiven. Now, get your arse and your soulmate’s arse over here, immediately.”

She reels off an address, which is easy enough for Toni to remember, and quickly hangs up the phone, leaving the hollow screech of the dial tone that makes Toni cringe and hook the phone back onto its base unit.

“We have to go to SHIELD,” she says, flatly.

* * *

A young man meets them at the entrance when they arrive at the address Peggy had given them. He’s young enough, a good five years older than her, which doesn’t say much because Toni hasn’t aged much, not in ten years, still looking very much like a twenty-one-year-old, rather than a thirty-one-year-old. His hair is shorn close to his scalp, and he had strong, clean features, dressed in a sharp, black suit.

“Ms Stark, Sergeant Barnes,” he says, pleasantly. “Welcome to SHIELD.”

Toni gives him a measured look, while her insides flutter in panic at how easily this man uses their names (in a different world, in a different facility, the violence they would’ve known for such words, _Stark_ and _Barnes_ , well, what does this man know?).

“Who are you?” she asks, flatly.

“Agent Phil Coulson.” He extends a hand.

She takes it cautiously, shaking it.

“How do you know our names?” Toni asks him, careful and weighty.

“I was briefed by Director Carter,” Agent Coulson explains, giving her a brief, fleeting smile. “She was… unavoidably detained, so she sent me to greet you.”

“I want to see Peggy,” Toni says, her voice dropping low.

“Of course, I just need to-”

“No,” Toni says, flatly. “I want to see her now.”

“Ms Stark, there are protocols that must be-”

“If you were briefed, then, you would know who I am,” she points out. “You would know who _we_ are. Now, tell me, Agent Coulson, do you think the Winter Soldier and the Blessed Engineer care much about protocols?”

Agent Coulson meets her gaze, careful and weighty. “No, I don’t particularly think you do.”

Toni musters a smile for him, thin and tired. “Good, now, please, will you take us to my godmother? I’d like to see her.”

* * *

“Ducky,” Peggy sighs, climbing to her feet and coming around her desk, breaking midway a conversation with a black man in a sharp suit, eyepatch over one eye.

Howard is in the room, as well, and he stares at Toni with a half-flummoxed expression at her entrance, with James at her back.

“It’s good that you’re here,” Peggy says, kindly, wrapping her arms around her.

Toni returns her embrace. After six years, she’s gotten used to Peggy’s embraces, and she’s always been good at lying.

“You asked, we came,” Toni replies.

“James,” Peggy says, clapping him on the shoulder and squeezing.

“Peg,” he says, voice lowering. “Howard.”

“Barnes,” Howard returns (after six years, he still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that Toni’s screwing his old war buddy). His dark, flashing eyes soften when they fall on her. “Antonia.”

“Howard,” she replies, easily.

His face twists, like he hates that she calls him by name, instead of _dad_ or _papa_ or _baba_. Perhaps it’s evil of her, but she doesn’t love him like she should; she doesn’t love them like she should.

 _Love is for children_ , she thinks, tired.

What she feels for James is something impossible and dangerous and so much more than love; she would kill and burn and die for James, and she knows he would, he would do anything for her, be anything for her.

What she feels for Peggy and Sharon is similar; she would put herself between them and anything in this world and beyond, rather than see them hurt in one moment.

But Howard and Maria, she should love them, she should want them, she should want to bleed for them, but it doesn’t come down to her toes and fingers; it stops somewhere along her throat and it fucking sucks. Oh, she cares for them; she’d shield them if they needed her to, but she’s never forgotten that she’s a dull shade of their dead daughter, even if she walks and talks and looks like her.

That dark, delicate little girl that could have been will always linger between them.

“You sounded worried on the phone,” Toni says, carefully. “What’s going on, Peggy?”

Peggy licks her lips and taps a lean finger on the file on her desk, passing it to James first.

“We’ve… hit a snag with the Russians,” she explains, vaguely.

Toni’s eyebrows draw together. “What do you mean?”

“There is a girl, a Russian, who’s made a name for herself,” Peggy explains. “We sent one of our operatives after her-”

“-to kill her,” Toni finishes.

Peggy grimaces. “Yes.” She hastens to explain. “She is very good,” she says, quickly. “Her expertise, her threat level to global security, she appeared very quickly on SHIELD’s radar; we couldn’t _not_ do anything for her.”

“Who is the operative? Who did you send after her?” James asks, curiously.

“Do they have clearance for this?” the suited man interjects, eyeing them with plenty of suspicion.

Toni gives him a sharp smile, which cuts like a naked sword. “By all means, throw us out.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “I trust them, Nick,” she soothes. “Toni, James, this is Nick Fury, my second. Nick, this is James Barnes and my goddaughter, Antonia-”

“-Stark,” Fury finishes, inclining his head. “The Winter Soldier and the Blessed Engineer.”

James lifts an eyebrow. “You’ve done your research, or…” he shoots Peggy a half-amused, half-disgruntled look. “Someone’s been a little bit more open than they should’ve been.”

Peggy shrugs. “Few people know.”

“The person who welcomed us knew,” James points out.

Peggy nods. “Fury trusts him.”

James cocks a head. “Am I supposed to trust Fury?”

Peggy sighs. “James-”

“Don’t-” James snaps.

“Don’t,” Peggy interjects, her voice rumbling like a landslide. “Don’t hush me, Barnes.”

James grits his teeth, ducking his head.

“I am concerned,” he says, voice strained. “You have a loose tongue, Carter. And if Toni is put in danger because of it-”

“She won’t be,” Peggy says, coldly.

“She _might_ be,” James retorts.

Peggy makes a sound like a cat hissing. “I would never do anything that put you or her in danger.”

“Clearly, that’s not true,” James folds his arms over his chest. “Otherwise, you might’a been a little more discretionary about who you decided to go spilling all our dirty laundry to.”

“You got a lot of nerve accusing us of anything,” Howard barks. “Considering we wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you.”

James’ eyes flash. “I am the only reason your daughter is alive,” he points out, grimly. “You wouldn’t have been able to protect her.”

Howard flinches and looks away.

James goes on. “She needed me, and I protected her. So, yeah, I’m gonna accuse you of whatever the fuck I want, because she’s _mine_ , Stark, you got that? It’s my name on her wrist, it’s me she chose, it’s me she wants. She isn’t leavin’ me, you know, no matter how much you want her to.” He looks at Peggy. “I know you love her. I know you trust these people, but I don’t know them from a hole in the wall. If something happens to her because you skywrote who she is, what she’s done, where she _lives_ -”

“What, Barnes?” Peggy asks, dangerously. “What, Barnes? What are you going to do?”

“Don’t push me,” James says, a mean, little snarl to his face. “Not where she’s concerned.”

“Oh, because you’re the only one who cares about Toni?” Peggy asks, full of scorn.

“You don’t even know her,” James spits.

Toni sighs, throwing her hands up in the air.

 _Fucking children_ , she thinks derisively. _I have to put up with fucking children._

“You think this domesticated mechanic is who she _really_ is?” James asks, incredulously. “You think because you’ve seen photos in files and reports detailing what she’s done, what she’s capable of, that means you _know_ her? She’s not a pet, Carter. She’s not something you can push around on a chessboard. She’s not something you can use. She’s not a resource, not anymore, not for HYDRA, not for SHIELD, not for any of you, do you understand me? I made her a promise, I made her a promise that we’d never be slaves again, and I won’t let you ruin that for us.”

Peggy takes a step forward, half-hurt and half-furious. “You think I want you to be my _slaves_? I’ve shielded you for _years_ , Barnes, and never asked anything in return; don’t I deserve some sort of trust?”

James snorts. “Like you had any other choice. Somehow, I don’t think admitting that a known war hero was actually kidnapped by Nazis and Russians, brainwashed into being an assassin and kidnapped the daughter of one of the founders of SHIELD, raising her into an equally effective assassin for Nazis and Russians, while SHIELD took in said Nazis to help do their dirty work-”

Peggy’s teeth are bared in an ugly, gargoyle smile, dissonant on her pleasing face. “Well, if we denied redemption to every man who helped serve Hitler’s agenda once upon a time, where would you be?”

Toni feels the viciousness, the betrayal of those words, keenly, slicing swiftly, mercilessly, through her gut, and she looks away before Peggy can see how her face goes white as chalk at the unnecessary and frankly cruel blow.

James, though, James doesn’t flinch, much to Toni’s savage pride. “Yeah, I wonder where I’d be, indeed.”

Peggy falters. “I didn’t mean-”

“You meant _exactly_ what you meant, and you said what you said,” James practically taunts. “Don’t rewrite history, Pegs.” He inhales, eyes gleaming. “And frankly, you proved my point.”

Peggy takes another step forward, fists clenching and unclenching around air. “That came out wrong, James. I didn’t mean it like that, and that was unfair of me to say, but I stand by what I did. I didn’t reveal your existence to Agent Fury or Agent Coulson lightly, and we do need your help, not because I expect something in return for helping you back in 1995, but because you have intel that we don’t have access to, and we could really use it right now.”

“But you still _did._ You told them, you told _strangers_ who we are, who we were, where we live,” James growls. “How the fuck am I supposed to trust you?”

“I trust them with my life,” Peggy snaps, dark eyes flashing.

“Yeah, well, I don’t trust them with fixing my garage door,” James retorts. “Let alone Toni’s safety, let alone mine.”

“I wouldn’t have told any of them if I didn’t think they’d keep your secret,” Peggy insists.

James shakes his head, mouth pinched in a taut line. “You should’ve asked us first,” he grits out.

“I didn’t have time,” Peggy urges.

“Tell us about the Russian operative,” Toni interjects, before the conversation can rear its ugly head all over again.

Peggy’s eyes flit to hers, halfway apologetic. “Like I said, she’s earned a reputation for herself, a pretty terrible one. So, we sent one of our operatives after her. Hawkeye. His real name is Clint Barton, and he’s, uh, he’s really good with a bow and arrow. He went after her, and well, apparently, he had a change of heart. He decided to convert her.”

James and Toni exchange a look.

“ _Americans_ ,” he mutters to her in Russian.

Toni’s lips quirk up in a half-smile. She turns back to Peggy. “The Russian girl, does she have a name?”

Peggy’s eyes are steady. “Natalia. Natalia Alianovna Romanova.”

Toni stills and looks at James.

_You have got to be kidding me._

* * *

“I’m going in,” Toni declares.

“If you’re going in, I’m going in too,” James says, adamantly.

“No, you’re not,” Toni insists. “Look, if we go inside together, she will have her guard up, okay? We won’t get anywhere. Plus, she liked me better.”

James snorts. “That’s because you taught her how to use her thighs to snap necks.”

Toni shrugs. “It’s a useful skill to have.”

“I don’t like the idea of you in a room alone with her,” James says, stubbornly.

“She’ll be cuffed, and I can stop a truck with my bare hands.” Toni snorts. “I think I can handle one Russian girl.”

James folds his arms across his barrel chest. “Fine, but I’ll be on the other side of the glass, and if you want to come out, just… use one of our usual signals, okay.”

Toni grips his jaw and kisses his stubbled cheek. “Okay, _sliva moya_.”

“Now I know why you don’t like me calling you _malina moya_ in public,” James grumbles.

“Well, I call you a plum, because you love plums, sweet,” Toni teases. “You call me your raspberry because-”

“He calls you a raspberry?” Peggy asks, walking over to them.

James flashes a wicked look at Toni. “Well-”

Toni covers his mouth with the palm of her hand. “It’s an inside joke,” she explains, smoothly.

She gives him a warning stare. _If you tell her anything, I will throw out all your vanilla pods and then, tie you down while I use my vibrator on myself._

James blinks twice, and she lets him go. Peggy watches them suspiciously.

“It’s a long and ancient story,” he tells her.

“Alright,” Peggy says, slowly, turning to Toni, upon which her look softens. “We’re going to be on the other side of this glass; if you want to pull out, let us know and we’ll pull you out. There’s no need to torture yourself over this, okay. You mean more to us than she does.”

 _Because I have a very valuable serum in my veins that could make me into SHIELD’s greatest soldier, as I was once HYDRA’s_ , Toni can’t help but think.

She offers Peggy a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

Peggy braves a smile in return and reaches out, squeezing her hand. “You’ll be fine, ducky. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“That, you have my agreement on,” James chimes in.

He threads his fingers into her hair, around the nape of her neck, and pulls her in, pressing his mouth against her hairline.

“You’re going to be just fine, _carevna_.”

Toni pulls away. “I may actually kill you this time,” she declares.

James laughs, bright and unguarded. “You’d miss me too much. Now, go in there, and the sooner you finish, the sooner we can go home and buy pizza for dinner.”

Toni swallows, thickly. “The one with the artichokes and the aioli?” she asks, in a small voice.

James smooths a thumb over her cheekbone. “Yeah, that one.”

Toni nods to herself. “Okay, wish me luck.”


	6. vi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Sam Wilson/Natasha Romanoff" square (W5) for the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019-2020.

She slips inside the door and shuts it behind her with a soft click. She turns to the girl seated at the metal table, cuffed.

Her eyes widen, just fleetingly, when she sees Toni hovering in the doorway, before her expression smoothens out.

“ _Skol’ko let, skol’ko zim_ , Natalia,” she murmurs, approaching the girl.

She looks much as she had when she was a child, that same dark auburn hair and bright green eyes, the sharp, singular look like she peels apart everything she sees, just taller, broader, stronger.

“I didn’t realise,” Natalia manages to say, her American accent without fault.

Toni cocks her head. “Didn’t realise what?”

“That you were American,” Natalia answers.

Toni’s lips quirk up in a half-smile. “Neither did I.”

Natalia nods, as if she understands. She stares down at her bound hands before lifting her eyes. “Are you here to kill me?” she asks, defeated.

Toni blinks. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You defected,” Natalia shrugs. “You work for SHIELD. Despite the enthusiasm of Agent Barton, I am no fool. I know what the Americans think of people like me. They want me dead, and they have sent you to kill me, because they know of our past. Am I correct?”

“I don’t work for SHIELD,” Toni corrects.

Natalia blinks at her.

“I’m a mechanic, actually,” she says, casually.

“That…” Natalia frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why?” Toni asks, curiously.

“I remember,” Natalia hesitates. “I remember what you _used_ to be.”

“And you don’t think a mechanic can be birthed from that?”

Natalia blinks, as if she hadn’t considered that, considered the possibility that someone might prefer a menial job to the job that destroys significant moments in history before they can become significant and assassinates politicians at dinner with their spouses and children.

“ _Inzhener_ , I-”

“Toni,” Toni interjects. “I go by Antonia now, Toni, for short.”

Natalia swallows. “Oh.”

Toni watches her, carefully. “You want to defect, then?”

“I…” Natalia looks down at her hands, splayed out on that table. “You know what I am, what they made me.”

“I do,” Toni agrees.

Natalia lifts her eyes. “I want to do more, _be_ more,” she says, defiantly.

“Why should I believe you? These people, they are very hesitant over Russians, as you’d probably understand. You’ve killed a number of their assets over the years.”

“I have, and I’d imagine, so have you,” Natalia points out.

“I have,” Toni concedes. “There were, of course, mitigating circumstances.”

“Then, you would know that those mitigating circumstances that you just spoke about likely applied to me as well.”

“What I know is that I was treated much better under a Soviet roof than I ever was under HYDRA,” Toni says, smoothly. “One would call you a patriot rather than a victim.”

Natalia’s smile is ugly. “Then you weren’t with us for long.”

“Why did you agree to Agent Barton’s proposal, Natalia?” Toni asks, curiously. “I remember you as a girl; all you wanted to do was serve the motherland. What could possibly have changed that you thought defecting to America would be a sensible choice?”

“I have killed many people,” Natalia acknowledges.

“I know.” Toni inclines her head.

“I want from my life than death,” Natalia confesses. “I want… I am _tired_ ,” she grits out.

“And you want the American dream? It’s understandable,” she muses.

“I want freedom,” Natalia argues, almost offended that she would be so easily boxed. “I want more than Russia was willing to give me. I want more than death.” Her eyes flicker open, revealing a brief sheen across them. “I want to walk in the sunshine and know I belong there,” she says, determinedly.

Toni lays her hands on the table. She searches her for a long, laden moment, then once more, just to be sure. Her eyes drag down to the burn, pink and shiny and raised, over her wrist, her right wrist, and her face takes on a pinched, thin look.

“I will speak to them,” she says, finally.

Natalia looks up. She doesn’t dare to hope; she isn’t foolish enough to do so, not when Toni could reach across the table and snap her neck like a toothpick.

“And tell them what?” she dares to ask.

Toni just smiles. “Don’t worry about that.”

* * *

“I believe her,” she tells Peggy, once the door is closed.

Peggy sighs. “Toni. She isn’t the girl you knew-”

“Her soulmark is burnt off, did you know that?” Toni says, casually.

Peggy’s face twists in disgust and she looks away.

“Yes, I recall the Red Room had such practices. If she knew the name, she never told me, but the Red Room… well, for me, for us, it was kinder than anything I had known before.”

James snorts. “You killed a man while you were showering.”

Peggy and Howard’s eyes snap to her, and she rolls her eyes.

“He tried to rape me while I was washing my hair,” she points out. “I was justified, and it was one time. I was terrified of that with the commander every _moment_ we were with HYDRA.”

Howard scowls absolute murder. “I feel like you’ve hidden too much of your time with HYDRA,” he grumbles.

“If I told you everything, you may keel over, old man,” she says, flatly.

Howard glares at her.

Toni turns back to Peggy. “I trust her,” she repeats, her voice softer. “I think she wants to turn her life around. She deserves this chance, the chance that I had, the chance that James had.”

Peggy shakes her head. “She could still be a threat. She could be lying. This could be a plot of the Russians to slip a traitor right under our noses, and we could be buying the bait,” she argues.

“You trusted me on a lot less, and we actually tried to kill you when I was sixteen,” Toni says, sharply.

“That was different.”

“Why? Because I’m your goddaughter, because he’s Captain America’s best friend. We all know that James and I didn’t actually earn our freedom,” Toni growls.

“You two were victims,” Peggy snaps. “You were used and abused by HYDRA. You were… I remember what you two looked like, how you sounded, when you came to my doorstep in 1995. You weren’t better than beaten dogs.”

“And you think she’s different?” Toni demands. “The Red Room steals girls from their families, kills their parents, raises them to murder in their country’s name, sells them to the highest bidder when the occasion calls for it. If you deny her this chance to do something more, you will just be another faceless monster in her world. You can do better than the Russians, Peggy. You can be to her what you were to us, a chance for redemption. Don’t disappoint her, not like everyone else has.”

Peggy stares at her, before she takes a deep breath. “Fine,” she says, squaring her shoulders.

“We could give her a job,” Fury offers.

Everyone looks at him. He stares them down.

“She would have good intel,” he points out. “She’s worked for the Russians for years. She could tell us a lot.”

“You’re not going to _use_ her,” Toni argues. “She’s a victim.”

“Fury’s right. It could be beneficial,” Howard agrees, quietly.

Toni stares at him, half-betrayed, half-furious.

“We should ask her what she wants from this,” James says.

Everyone turns to him, then.

James shrugs. “She’s been without choice for years; let her have this one. If she wants to work for, worth _with_ SHIELD,” he gives Peggy a stern look. “then, she can. If she wants to walk away, set up a fruit shop in Massachusetts, she gets the chance. Okay?”

Peggy and James exchange a terrifying, impossible look, and finally, she nods.

“And if she’s a mole?” Peggy points out.

Toni stares down at her hands, fingers clenching and unclenching around air, remembering the little girl who looked at her so defiantly, who had helped her pull a bullet out of James’ gut, and thinks, _what if she tells someone, what if they find us, cut off one head and another will fucking grow back, like a parasitic leech, that is HYDRA and she could end us both._

She lifts her eyes, and there is no hesitation. “I will kill her.”

* * *

“What do you want?” she asks, when she slips back into the cold interrogation room, taking a seat opposite Natalia.

Natalia swallows. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t take Agent Barton’s hand lightly,” Toni says, cautiously. “You said you wanted freedom, more than Russia was willing to give you, more than death. You said you wanted to walk in the sunshine and know you belong there. Fine, how does it happen?”

“I thought they would decide that.”

Toni’s lip curves up like a naked sword. “They think you have intel. You do, I imagine. You could tell SHIELD things they’d likely never figure out on their own. You could fight for SHIELD, help them, trying and clean the blood out of your ledger, make up for the graveyards you’ve helped fill.”

“Is that what you did?” Natalia asks, dully. “Make amends for all the death and rot and ruin you dealt out.”

“No,” Toni says, heavily. “It’s not what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“That’s a story for another day. But today, you have a choice. You can fight for SHIELD, all that terrible strength that Russia gave you, you can be a shield, instead of a sword. Or you can sell fruit in Massachusetts.”

Natalia’s brow knits. “What?”

Toni grins, fleetingly. “You could make a life for yourself, outside of SHIELD. You could do what you want. You could sell fruit, you could stitch skirts, you could teach children, you could build trains, you could cut tumours from heads, you can serve pancakes to mouthy tourists, if you’d like. The world is your oyster, as they say.”

Natalia’s eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”

Toni shakes her head. “I am not.”

“You are, you must be. SHIELD would not be so foolish,” Natalia argues.

“Why do you say that?” Toni wonders out loud.

“Because I am a threat,” Natalia grits out, ugly and hard. “Why would they let me fight for them? Better yet, why would they let me go?”

“This won’t ever sit easy with you, because after six years, it still doesn’t sit easy with me and likely will never, but what happened to you, what they did to you, what you’ve done for them, that was not your fault.”

Natalia shakes her head; it’s not desperate, like she wants to believe it, but her heart, her head won’t allow it; it’s firm and slow, like it’s absolutely absurd that Toni would even put that out into the world.

“Like I said, it won’t sit easy with you, you may never believe me. When I was told this, I laughed in their faces. I have murdered men at dinner, women in the shower, and children in airplanes and parking lots.” Toni smiles, full of resentment, festering like an unclean wound. “Who could ever look at me and call me innocent?”

_Yasha does, he calls me innocent. I love him for it, but I half hate him for it too. I did all those awful things, child or not, captive or not. I should live with them._

“In any case,” Toni sighs. “This is what SHIELD wants to believe. This is what I’ve told them. So, if you’d like, you have a job here. And if you don’t like, we can get you set up somewhere.”

“You don’t work for SHIELD,” Natalia eases out.

“I don’t,” Toni agrees.

“What do you do?” she asks, cautiously.

Toni’s mouth quirks up a little. “I’m a mechanic. And sometimes, I teach self-defence to women and children at a gym.”

Natalia’s throat flexes. “And this gives you peace?” she asks, dubiously.

“No,” Toni says, honestly. “Nothing will give you peace. You are just happier a little more every day that passes by.”

Natalia nods, stares down at her cuffed hands. “I want to do more,” she says again, firm and full of resolve. “I can do more with SHIELD.”

Toni lets that sink in and then, nods. “Come with me.”

She pulls out the keys to the shackles that Peggy had given her and unlocks them. They clang against the table as they fall from Natalia’s wrist, drawing an odd, startled little noise from her.

“They’re letting me walk free, just like that,” Natalia says, uncertainly.

Toni remembers, they used to tie the girls down to their beds as they slept, back in the Red Room.

Natalia has never known a life without shackles.

Toni understands, the Engineer remembers.

“You aren’t a prisoner anymore; you’re one of them or you soon will be,” Toni reminds her. “Plus, if this is a long con, well, I’m more than an incentive to not do something stupid.”

A shadow passes over Natalia’s eyes. “Yes, I remember.”

Toni offers her arm. “Ready?”

* * *

“You!” Natalia shouts, when the door opens, and James turns around.

Toni almost laughs at how betrayed she looks.

“Natalia,” James says, inclining his head.

She takes a step back, and there’s a fleeting look of fear on her face, as if she thinks is some long game, as if this is the moment where the veil falls, and she gets a knife to her throat. 

“He won’t hurt you,” Toni soothes.

“I won’t,” James agrees. “I have no war with you, Natalia.”

“You’re alive, you’re here, you’re…” Natalia looks at Toni, half-wild. “I don’t understand.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

“The two of you…” Natalia trails off, and Toni wonders if she can’t define them (Toni still finds it difficult today). “I always thought…” she swallows hard.

“Antonia is my soulmate,” James explains, unfaltering. “and I am hers.”

Natalia looks down at her feet. “I… I thought so, I thought I dreamt that, actually. You seemed so… perfectly balanced with each other,” she whispers, smoothing a thumb over her scarred wrist. “He came with you, when you left?”

“We left with each other,” Toni corrects, kindly.

She wouldn’t have gone anywhere, she wouldn’t _go_ anywhere without him.

“So, when we last saw each other, were you two-”

“No.” Toni shakes her head. “No, we weren’t, not then, after.”

“I always thought there was something between you two,” Natalia says, an odd, mercurial smile taking form on her face. “I just thought you were very good at hiding it.”

“We were,” Toni muses, fond and rueful.

Natalia takes a deep breath. “So, what now?”

“Now, you meet Peggy Carter.”

* * *

“Miss Romanova,” Peggy greets, stoically, thrusting out a hand.

Natalia takes it cautiously. “Director Carter.”

“I understand that you want to join SHIELD.”

Natalia looks at Toni, who braves a smile for her. “Yes, yes, I do.”

“You understand that we would never have given you a choice like that if you… if you didn’t come with impeccable references,” Peggy says, wearily.

Natalia nods. “I know.”

Peggy softens. “But I appreciate you wanting to do more, do something substantial with your life, Miss Romanova. I admire it. You could’ve taken a different path, but you chose this one instead. It tells me you’re brave and you’re determined. I’ve always liked those qualities in people, especially women.”

Natalia shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind selling fruit, but I can do more with this, I think.”

Peggy offers her a smile. “Good. Now, we have found you a handler, who will oversee your induction and your training, and then, your missions. His name is Phil Coulson, and I’ll take you to see him later on. We will, of course, need to get documentation ready for you. Is Natalia Romanova the name you would like to go by?”

Natalia takes a deep breath. “No.”

Peggy lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“If I can, I’d like to choose another,” she says, carefully.

Peggy sends James and Toni a fond, sweet look. “You wouldn’t be the first. Do you have any ideas?”

Natalia flings her eyes over to Toni and James, and they wait, because this is a moment, this is an instant that Natalia will remember; this is _her_ instant (like _Toni_ was Antonia, the Engineer’s instant; like _James_ was James, the Winter Soldier’s instant).

“Natasha,” she finally decides, meeting Peggy’s eyes with a measured look. “Natasha Romanoff.”

* * *

**2003**

James licks into her cunt, hands on her thighs, splaying her out.

Toni sighs, threading her fingers through his long, dark hair, her legs shaking.

James lifts his head, a smile curving along his mouth. “Like I said, raspberries,” he teases.

Toni hooks her ankles around his neck. “Bold words, when I can strangle you like this,” she points out.

“Then, I’d never lick you out ever again; you couldn’t live without that,” James says, smugly.

Toni arches her back, grinding her hips down. “Just… keep doing what you’re doing,” she mutters.

“I’m going to tie you down and fuck you until you scream,” James says, darkly, before sliding one long finger up inside her, right to the knuckle.

“Promises, promises,” she gasps, and when his thumb circles her clit, she crashes over the edge, thighs clamping down around his neck.

When he pulls away from her, she’s still shaking, but goes willingly into his long, broad arms, as they settle around her.

She could almost asleep like this, in his arms, in their bed, in the blustery sunlight, if not for the sound of glass breaking, cutting through the air like a knife through butter.

Toni rises, clutching at his arm, meeting his eyes, his strong, clean features, the colour of a still sea before a storm.

A breathless instant, and then, they both roll off the bed, onto their feet. A knife is strapped to the underside of their bed, which she peels off, gripping the hilt with a hot hand.

She’s always liked sharp things, more than bullets.

James has a gun in his hand, a regular, ordinary Glock; he might’ve preferred the weight of one of Stark Industries’ squad automatic weapons, or one of the assault rifles, she knows, but the Glock will have to do for his purposes.

Toni knows he’s enough of a threat without a weapon in his hand, let alone with alone.

She presses a finger to her mouth, before curling her fingers towards him. He nods, and they pad together out of the bedroom, their footsteps as soft as a fairy’s tread. She’s half naked still, in a lace bra and her leggings (he’d rolled down her tights and her underwear to his knees just so he could put his mouth on her), but she doesn’t mind.

She hears them before she sees them.

“Why did you have to break the glass?” one hisses. “They’ll know we’re here.”

“Relax,” the other scoffs. “He’s too busy fucking her to pay attention to what’s going on around him. Fuck knows if I had a hot little bitch like that in my bed, I’d be hard pressed to notice people breaking into my house.”

“That hot little bitch would eat your eyes and your liver before you even knew you were bleeding, you dipshit,” the third scolds.

The second snorts. “Oh, please, we all know she’s what he made her-”

James’ face contorts with fury and hate.

“She followed him around like a little pet. She only ran away from HYDRA because he got cold feet. Wasn’t that why he kidnapped her in the first place? The Asset needed a little stress relief, and a tight, wet cunt’s the best sort. Man, if only we got a chance at her. I bet I know how they started fucking. I bet they were on a mission, and he told her to get down on her knees like a good little slut and suck-”

James fires his rifle, and the bullet goes between the second intruder’s eyes.

She turns to give him a vicious look.

He shrugs in turn.

“What was that?”

“Where did it come from?”

“Shut up, fucking shut up! They can probably hear us?”

“Yes,” Toni says, leaning against the banister. “Yes, we can.”

She jumps over the banister and lands on her feet in front of them, softly. She gives them a hard, reckless smile, when they raise their guns threateningly. There are more than the three she heard, minus one, a good four more, a total of six now.

She’s a fearsome sight, she knows, only made worse by the man that lands behind her, stalwart and defending as always.

“What brings you to our home, gentlemen?” she asks, kindly, even though an urge twists in her belly to peel their eyes from their skulls.

“HYDRA wants you back,” the first man says, coldly. “There’s still much work left to do.”

“Yes,” she sighs. “I imagine so. You’ll have to find other pets to do your dirty work; James and I are retired.”

Her hand swings open, shoving aside his armed limb, before she lobs a kick at his throat, snapping his neck. Before anyone can argue, James is on another, swinging his metal fist so hard that she sees the pulp of his brain matter streaked across Toni’s favourite part of her soulmate.

A gun fires, and Toni ducks, just in time for the bullet to go soaring through the space her head had just been occupying, only to land in the wall, in between the eyes of Judith, the portrait that hangs on the wall.

James had bought that, when they first moved into this house; he told her, _it reminds me of you, your pride, your hunger, your bite._

And these animals, they destroyed it.

Because they want to take her back, they want to drag her back and strip her down and make her into a doll they can beat and use and fuck, like there’s nothing in her body, no mind, no heart, no soul, nothing, like she belongs to them, like she _still_ belongs to them, like nothing’s changed, like she isn’t _Antonia Stark_ and not the _Engineer_.

 _They can burn,_ she thinks.

The one that shot her, he gets a red smile across his throat, a gift from her knife.

The next one, she goes for his eyes. There’s a squelch when she slides her fingers into his sockets and peels them from his skull. He screams the whole way through until he gasps his death, blood smeared all over his face. When she turns around, the rest are all dead.

“Excuse you,” she says, slightly affronted.

James shrugs. “You got three, I got three.”

His arms are streaked with blood, and there are six corpses littering their lounge room, much to his unfaltering disdain. There’s even a red-black smear over the sharp line of his cheekbone, and Toni swipes at it with her thumb, her teeth sinking into the flesh of her lower lip.

Her long, thin fingers trail down his chest, over his plain cotton shirt, to the buckle of his belt. She unfastens it, unbuttons his jeans and pulls down the zipper, without ever taking her eyes off him. She slips her hands inside his underwear and wraps a hand around his cock, thumbing the head.

He grunts and sways forward.

“What are you doing?” he asks, breathlessly, his eyes dark, his pupils blooming.

She runs the edge of her tongue over her teeth. “My blood is up,” she says, slyly.

James chuckles and then, groans, when her grip around his cock tightens. He reaches for her, hand smoothing over the slope of her hip, and drags her in. His hand slides up, cupping a breast over the lace cup of her bra, swiping over a nipple that tightens.

“You are very slow,” she sighs.

“I was trying to be seductive,” James says, affronted. “Would you rather I manhandle you, toss you onto the floor and have my way with you?”

“Yes,” Toni says, slowly.

James sighs. “Okay, then.”

He grabs her by the waist and bears her down, beside the dead bodies. Her head twists to the side, her hair spilling out across the floor, staining with blood.

“That’s going to be a bitch to clean,” she comments.

“You’re looking at the wrong man, _dorogaya moya_ ,” he scolds.

Toni casts down her eyelashes. “You know you are the only one I see,” she says, sweetly.

James laughs, bright and proud (she hoards every one of his laughs like a dragon hoards gold; she remembers a time when he didn’t laugh, when he didn’t smile).

He props her hips over his broad thighs and rolls down her leggings and underwear, inch by inch, achingly slow, before splaying her legs out over his hips. He slips his hand inside his underwear and tugs out his cock. She’s wet and ripe between her legs when he slides inside her, a breath leaving him like this is peace.

She arches her back, scrabbling against the ground, as his hips rock into her, slow and steady, and it feels like fire licking up her insides. Then, he changes. Then, he grasps her hips and fucks her hard and stupid and thorough, mouth against her throat, as she moans and pants.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers, threading her fingers through his hair.

He smiles against the curve of her shoulder. “Why would I stop?” he grunts.

He shifts his hips and snaps forward, the stretch, the burn, the weight dragging the air out of his lungs, and his thumb circles her clit.

She comes like a seventy-car pileup, clenching around him, as she shakes through her orgasm. The flutter of her insides around his cock, impossibly tight, is enough, and he comes as well, face twisting with ecstasy, pulsing and then, pulling out of her with a wet, obscene noise.

“Fuck,” he breathes, sinking onto his back beside her.

She turns onto his side, nudging her nose against his pectoral.

“That was very good,” she murmurs, finger circling his navel.

“I aim to please,” he chuckles. “Should we clean this up?”

Her hand scrambles for her clothes, but squelches and comes back wet with blood, her face contorted with disgust.

“Shower first?” she says.

James pushes himself onto his knees, red-black streaks all over the side of his thigh.

“Shower first,” he agrees.

* * *

“They’re won’t stop coming for us,” she murmurs, her whole body loose and warm in his arms, under the spray.

“No, they won’t,” his voice rumbles. “They know where were live.”

“They do,” Toni agrees.

_They do._

Once they’re done in the shower, Toni carries each of the corpses outside, into the pale, dawning sunlight. The fences are high enough, the shrubbery thick enough, that no one will see when she plants pikes in the earth with her bare hands and impales six corpses through each of them.

It’s a warning.

Come morning, she steps out in the sun, wrapped up in a robe and one of James’ shirts, clutching at a mug of coffee, smoke billowing upwards. She drinks.

The pikes are empty.

It was an omen.

_Touch me, touch mine, I will kill you and I will laugh as I kill you. I am not a child. I am not a soldier. I am not a slave._

_I am death and I am unforgiving._

* * *

**2006**

They’re on holiday in Washington, D.C. when she meets Sam Wilson.

She never thought she’d ever come back to this place, her first almost-kill, where she failed so spectacularly and was punished so easily (the commander’s cold, hungry eyes flicker into view, and her heart digs hard into her lungs – _no, he’s dead, I killed him, he can never touch me again, he is no master of mine_ ).

She’s on her way from the convenience store, clutching a large, brown paper bag to her chest, when she runs into someone, knocking her back and startling the bag right out of her hands. It hits the ground and her groceries roll around the pavement.

“Fuck,” she says, decisively.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.”

She looks up and she’s faced with a gaze of dark eyes, like brandy, and a handsome face.

 _Oh, very pretty_ , she thinks and then, of course, remembers that she has a soulmate.

“It’s okay,” she reassures, picking up the can of crushed tomatoes that rolls back and forth over the concrete. “These things happen.”

“Still, I could’ve watched where I was going.”

“It’s my fault,” Toni explains. “I was infatuated by the rye bread and well, clearly, love is not my forte.”

“You might want to, uh, focus your attentions on something a little more worthy. Might I suggest the buttermilk?” he jokes.

Toni grins. “I’ll give it serious thought.”

“Sam Wilson,” the man says, thrusting out a hand.

“Toni, Toni Barnes,” Toni replies, shaking it.

“Yeah, I, uh, sorry, I recognise you from the news,” Sam says, rubbing the back of his neck, sheepishly.

Toni’s grin freezes, turns jagged. “Oh,” she says, flatly.

She had railed and raged when Peggy and Howard had both first suggested that they come out with the news that Antonia Stark was alive, mostly because the girl didn’t exist, not really, and they were more interested in thrusting her into a viper’s pit full of hungry, pathetic animals rather than understanding that Antonia Stark was a dead girl and she was just wearing her face.

Toni was real, Toni was palpable, but Antonia, Antonia didn’t exist. Antonia never existed.

So, Toni had fought (it’s what she knows best, to fuck and fight like a wild dog, and James had so easily joined her, when he saw the parasitic germ that was her rage and he realised that siding with her was the best way forward for him going forwards). She hadn’t gotten her way, of course, having to concede that the daughter of Howard Stark couldn’t live in blissful anonymity for the rest of her life.

She hadn’t allowed anything, of course, without wringing from Peggy a promise that HYDRA, the name, the creature, wouldn’t be mentioned within a hundred feet of her. Instead, the world knew her as a baby stolen from her incubator and raised in captivity by child traffickers (half-truths at best, but it didn’t make the bile rise in her throat like any of Peggy’s other options had).

The child-traffickers had been caught, Antonia freed, and the family had politely asked for her to be given space as she recovered from her ordeal (as if HYDRA would ever let go, as if she could ever be free of them, as if she isn’t just an animal screaming in a trap).

For the most part, people had left her alone.

The town she and James lived in was insular enough that no one mentioned it to her face (she had caught a couple of housewives trying to spot her scars, if she had any).

Pepper was the only one who didn’t look at her differently. In fact, she had gone out of her way to treat her like normal, including and not limited to stealing her caramel popcorn as they watched a movie and drinking and leaving make-up smears all across Toni’s clean, white sheets when she slept over.

Toni liked her even more for that.

“If you’re hoping for a photo or an autograph or-” Toni begins, stiffly.

“No, no,” Sam says, quickly, flushing. “It’s not that. I just… uh, I just wanted to ask if you’re okay.”

Toni blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“I saw the news.” Sam shrugs. “Judging from your reaction to me recognising you, I don’t think people are really concerned with your wellbeing. I just, well, I wanted you to know that there are people in this world who aren’t unempathetic douchebags.”

Toni cracks a smile. “Let me guess, you’re one of those people?” she teases.

Sam’s grin grows. “I try to be. I, uh, do some work at the VA, help people out who suffer from PTSD.”

Toni tilts her head. “PTSD?” she asks, a little uncertainly.

Sam’s throat works. “Yeah, uh, post-traumatic stress disorder,” he explains. “It’s, well, sometimes, after you’ve been through a traumatic event, they struggle with certain reactions, like, uh, re-living the traumatic event, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, physical and emotional distress, internal negativity, mood swings, depression, anxiety.”

“And you think I have this PTSD?” Toni asks, carefully.

“I just think if you want to talk to someone, who might get it, even some of it, or who just wants to listen, not ‘cause they’ve got something to gain from it, you can talk to me.” Sam offers her a half-smile. “A stranger might be better than family.”

A nebulous, distant concept he offers her, help without expectation, and her heart flips in her chest.

“Here, I’ve got a card.” Sam fishes out a sleek white rectangle out of his wallet and gives it to her.

She stares down at it.

_Sam Wilson, Counsellor._

She lifts her eyes. “Thank you.”


	7. vii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: character death (not Toni or James), torture, violence, explicit body horror/body modifications.

**2007**

Sam is the second, after Pepper.

The second stranger, to become something fiercer, stronger than family.

He lives far away, from their quiet little homestead in Cape May, but they make time for him; he comes to dinner when he’s around, and Toni talks to him, a lot more than Toni ever thought she could with anyone, even James.

But Sam, Sam is different, Sam is so unambiguously kind, so devastatingly capable that Toni feels like a child beside him, a child lumbering to meet the sun with awe, but a child nonetheless.

But all she feels towards him is nothing compared to the synergy, for lack of a more apt word, between Sam and James, who hit it off like nothing she’s ever seen before, and she wonders, how much of these last eleven years have been about her and the people in her orbit, as opposed to him and who he needs.

Sam is someone who he needs.

She thinks they talk about Steve, and the envy that curls in her ribcage, hot and almost hungry, feels like poison, because if he can’t talk about Steve with her, he should be able to talk about him with someone.

She was always a greedy girl. Perhaps, now, she’s just a jealous woman.

“So, how can your old godmother help you?” Peggy asks, one day, at tea.

“He made a friend,” she blurts out. “Actually, I guess both of us made a friend.”

Peggy blinks. “Oh?”

“Yeah, uh, Sam Wilson. He’s pararescue?” she explains. “They’ve bonded, but it’s a strange bonding. They argue a lot. but I don’t mind. I like Sam, he’s very nice. And he makes James smile; that’s all I want.” She hesitates for an agonising moment. “I think they talk about Steve.”

Peggy’s face folds in torment. “Ah,” she sighs.

“He doesn’t talk about Steve with me,” Toni offers.

“I imagine it was difficult for him to come home to a world where Steve was dead,” Peggy murmurs, her brow furrowing. “It… was a struggle for all of us, for me, for your father, for all the other Commandos. We all loved him very much.”

“What was he like?” she asks, suddenly, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.

This unseeable, unknowable shadow that dogged James’ heart, that had some hold on him that Toni could never understand, because she’d never loved anyone the way that James had loved ( _loves_ ) Steve, only James, and that was different, so very different.

Peggy frowns and slides to her feet. She returns moments later, clutching a hardbound book to her chest, and she lays it out on the table between them, next to the porcelain teacup and teapot. Peggy peels it open, revealing photographs tacked to the slightly-browning paper underneath.

Toni touches a photo of a small man, with bird bones, skin so thin that she can see the outline of everything that makes up his skeleton, his eyes gleaming blue like starlight, and a fierce look on his face, like nothing could drag him down, like nothing could grind him into nothing.

She’s charmed.

“This is him,” she says, lowly, the edge of her finger tracing his half-smile.

Peggy nods. “Before he got the serum.” She leans back, wistfully. “He had so many health problems, you know; the list would shock you, but he wanted to fight so much and so hard. Erskine, the man who developed the serum, saw something in him, kindness, bravery, strength; even small as he was, he was already so big.”

“And the serum just made his body match his heart,” Toni finishes.

_I was born strong, but in a weak body. The serum did nothing for me that I wasn’t already. Steve Rogers, in another world, you might have been the other half of me._

“You remind me of him.”

Toni startles. Peggy’s eyes gleam with amusement.

“What? Surprised? You are kind, kinder than someone else would be had they lived the life you’ve lied. You are clever, you are brave. You remind me of him.”

“He died, though.”

_I won’t die, not so easily._

“He did,” Peggy agrees. “We all mourned him.”

“You loved him,” Toni says, almost pertly.

“I did.” Peggy’s mouth twists in a mockery of a smile. “In a different life, had he survived, I might have married him, had children with him. But no, that isn’t my life. I loved him, he died, and I mourned him. I married my Daniel, whom I loved I think much better than I ever could’ve loved Steve.”

“You didn’t have children, though; do you regret it?” Toni asks, curiously.

Peggy grins with all her teeth, blinding white. “Why would I regret it?” she asks, baldly. “I have Sharon, I have you. I’ve never pushed out a baby between my legs, but that doesn’t make me _less_ of a mother.”

A queer sweet ache settles in Toni’s chest. _I think I like being your child, Peggy._

“Besides, I notice that you and James have been free for eleven years, and you haven’t brought up the topic of children once,” Peggy says, her eyes twinkling.

“I won’t ever have a child,” she says, lowly.

Peggy’s mouth thins, and she exhales. “Toni-”

“He was going to impregnate me,” she says, flatly. “The commander, on the last day I was with HYDRA. They stripped me naked, spread my legs and tied me down to an operating stretcher, and the commander, he said that I would be a mother to a new generation of soldiers, he said that I would help remake the world in their image, that I would serve a historic purpose for them, for HYDRA. The commander looked his fill, of course, the greedy fucking bastard,” She lifts her eyes, sunken and hollow as they are. “I would have been the mother of monsters. So, no, I will never have a child, I will never bring a child into this world.”

Bringing a child into this world, James’ child, her child, it would be giving HYDRA what they wanted.

She won't ever do that. She would kill everything that grows inside her, an awful thought, but she won’t ever give HYDRA what they want.

“Oh, ducky,” Peggy sighs, hand squeezing around tight around Toni’s. “You would be a great mother, but I understand. _I understand_.”

Something loosens in her chest, and she nods, her eyes burning.

Peggy clears her throat. “So, yes, I loved Steve. But I never loved him the way your James did, and I was never loved by him the way Steve loved James. Those two, if I hadn’t seen the name on your wrist and his, I might’ve thought they were two halves of the same whole; perhaps, they were, just in a different way.”

She wonders if she should be jealous; she doesn’t feel much anything.

“I wouldn’t take it to heart, the fact that he doesn’t speak of Steve to you,” Peggy says, gently. “There are things you talk about with me, and not with him, right?”

She thinks of the Commander, of all the awful things he did to her and said to her, the greedy, hungry way he looked at her, how good it felt to kill him, and she thinks, _yes, I can’t ever talk to Yasha about this, how would he understand, what it means to be a woman under the heel and hand of a man who wants to make her his own?_

But she spoke of him to Peggy, and it came so easy, because Peggy is a woman and she rages at all the right parts and she makes it easier, when not even James can do that, so maybe, yes, maybe, she understands,

“You know, you keep acting like James is your only tether to this existence, but you have people in your corner, you know,” Peggy points out. “People that aren’t there for you _and_ James, but you alone. You have me, you have Sharon, you have that girl back in your town, Pepper? You keep acting like a lone wolf; I think you’re anything but.”

“I envy him,” she says, suddenly.

Peggy’s eyes thin, her gaze going needle-sharp.

“He had something to come home to,” she says, lamely. “Maybe not a proper life, maybe not a family – although, he started reaching out to them as well – but he had morals and ethics and memories to come home to. I don’t have anything; I don’t know anything but for what they taught me. I’m a like a child. I have to relearn everything, and well, sometimes, it’s exhausting.”

Peggy cracks a smile. “Well, life is exhausting, darling.” She pats her hand in sympathy. “And you do have a family.”

Toni shrugs. “They are strangers to me,” she says, honestly. “They love me, I know, but there’s…”

“…a disconnect,” Peggy finishes for her, understanding. “I get it. Sometimes, just because someone says they’re family doesn’t mean they really are. Sometimes, something is in name only.”

“I still don’t know them,” Toni says, half-desperately. “I have dinners at their house. Maria, she gives me food to take home. I watch movies with her, I listen to her play the piano, and I know, _I know_ , she is my mother; I know she loves me, and she is, she _is_ important to me.” Her fist clenches and unclenches in her lap (HYDRA has taken so much from her; she won’t allow them to take her mother as well). “But as awful as it sounds, I feel more like Jarvis’ child than I do theirs.”

Peggy actually laughs. “Well, that’s because Jarvis held you first; did you know that?”

Toni startles. “No, I didn’t,” she says, softly.

Peggy nods. “Howard was away; he was always away.” She rolls her eyes. “Maria, she suddenly came down with cramps, she was bleeding, and we took her to the hospital; she had a difficult time getting pregnant, you know; it was hard for her, and she, when she was pregnant with you, she was so scared, she was so protective, so when she saw the blood, we took her straight to the hospital. Her labour was long, it was hard, and then you came out, squalling and red-faced, and it was like something settled in her eyes. But Jarvis, Jarvis took you in his arms, cradled you close, and you stopped crying. When he put you down, gave you to someone else, you started crying again. You were only calm when you were with him. And he and Ana,” Peggy’s mouth turns down, wistfully. “Well, they loved you the second you were put in Jarvis’ arms. You were theirs. Theirs and theirs.”

“I wish I could have met her,” Toni says, quietly.

“She was one of the Red Room, you know,” Peggy tells her.

Toni groans. “I’m learning too much today,” she mutters.

Peggy grins with all her teeth. “It’s why I was more lenient towards Agent Romanoff. Ana had, sort of, done it all before. She was long before your time, of course,” she reassures. “She ran away from them, quite young, set up in a tailor’s shop, where she met Jarvis, and well, that was that. But she never forgot you; she used to say, she dreamed of you, and so she knew, she knew you were living and breathing, and she hoped, she hoped so hard that you were laughing. So, yes, when you say you feel more like Jarvis’ child than Howard’s or Maria’s, I can imagine why.” She pauses. “You aren’t evil for thinking that way.”

Toni snorts. “No, I’m evil for a half a hundred other reasons.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Peggy says sternly. “Do we have to have the _mind-control makes it not your fault_ talk again?”

Toni rolls her eyes. “No, we don’t.”

“Good,” Peggy says, satisfied. The smile falls from her face, and Peggy blinks. “Maria, what are you doing here?”

Toni frowns. “Maria? Peggy, what are you talking about?”

“I didn’t even hear you come in, Maria,” Peggy says, unfailingly polite. “I’ll go make you some tea; we can have a nice chat.”

“Peggy,” Toni says, slowly. “It’s me, Toni.”

Peggy turns to her, a soft, sad look on her face. “Oh, love, I know it’s hard without her. I wish…” she sighs. “I wish we could find her, but it’s been so long, we don’t even know she’s alive.”

“But Peggy, it _is_ me, it is Toni,” she insists.

“Oh, Maria,” Peggy sighs. “I know you miss her, but Toni’s gone, Maria, she’s gone. I can’t imagine what you go through every day, but it’s been so many years, it’s just… this isn’t healthy for you. It just isn’t healthy.”

Peggy leaves the room, and Toni stares after her.

Her heart sinks.

* * *

Alzheimer’s disease, the doctors say, a chronic neurodegenerative disease that makes you forget.

When Peggy finally breaks the microwave in frustration, practically throwing it across the room, almost setting it on fire, she calms down and agrees to the facility Sharon and Toni find for her.

Seeing Peggy in that bed, tired and forgetful, but still so strong, still so fierce and all the smiles that don’t leave her face, well, Toni leaves a part of her heart in that bed.

* * *

**2009**

Maria wrings her hands together. “I would like to ask you a favour,” she asks, cautiously.

Toni frowns. “Yes?”

“Howard is going to Afghanistan for a weapons’ demonstration next month. I disapproved strongly, but he insisted it would give the military more confidence in the product if he made the demonstration personally, instead of some salesman.” Maria sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Afghanistan is an active war zone; I don’t understand that man at all. He’s too _old_.” She clasps Toni’s hands with a strength she shouldn’t have had in her withered fingers (sometimes, she thinks she’ll never know Maria as well as a girl should know her mother). “Will you go with him?”

 _James won’t like it_ , she thinks. _But she never asks me for anything._

“He is very old,” she agrees.

Personal distaste for Howard aside (all these years and he still hasn’t let go some stupid, infernal idea that James raped her while they were with HYDRA), she’s not about to let him walk into an active war zone without someone trustworthy and capable by his side.

Rhodey will be there, which gives her some confidence, but he has his responsibilities, his duty, so Toni will have to do.

“I will go,” she sighs.

How could she not?

* * *

Howard is a vision, a man of great charm and bluster when he meets the army (he half-reminds her of the commander; it’s an awful comparison to make, and it sets her teeth on edge as she thinks about it).

She stays at the back, shouldered by Rhodey, arm against his.

There’s a space empty by her side, and a yawning pit opens in her gut, the name on her wrist burning.

She shakes hands with a general, at Howard’s urging. He is a fat, somber man, with sweat pooling at his brow, and his eyes drag down, latching onto her throat and her breasts.

Toni sighs.

She leans in, and her grip on his hand turns punishing, making him wince, as she grinds the bones together.

“If you keep looking at my tits, I’m going to break your hand.”

He pales and pulls back, and he looks her in the eye properly.

“He’s my superior, so I really shouldn’t be saying this, but that was awesome,” Rhodey says, casually.

“How do you not shoot all these people on principle alone?” she asks, disgusted.

Rhodey is worth ten of these men, easily.

His hand comes to squeeze her shoulder (he touches her easily now). “Come on, let’s get you back to the base.”

“Okay,” Toni says, lowly. “I brought vodka; will you join me?”

“You are amazing; let’s get married,” Rhodey declares, and she laughs.

* * *

She slips into the four-wheel drive alongside Howard, while Rhodey goes to the car behind theirs.

It seems a poor try at protecting her father if she’s so easily separated from him.

Howard jokes around with the boys in the truck and the woman driving. His voice slips into a sly flirt, even with his grey hair and lines carved into his face, showing how close he is to death.

She gives him a sharp glance, like flinders, when that flirting turns a touch too real, her eyes dragging down to the _Maria Delfina Carbonell_ on his wrist, bared by the cuff of his shirt.

 _Watch yourself, old man_ , she thinks.

Howard quietens soon enough.

One of the soldiers, young and bright-eyed, asks to take a picture with Howard, who deigns to acquiesce to his request.

Right in the middle of taking the picture, while Toni stares on at the dirt road ahead, the world beside flares up in fire, rocking the vehicle to the side. She looks, seeing shadows and smoke and fire, and she reaches out, hand clamping down on Howard’s wrist.

His eyes are bright and enormous, as he looks at her, and she guesses, this is not normal.

“Get down, get down,” she hisses, urgently, shoving into the space wedged between the seats.

She has a gun strapped to her hip, which she palms just for comfort. The soldiers go out to fight and they come back, or rather hit the vehicle, dead. Finally, she thinks, this is a death-trap and they will die here, until she reaches between Howard’s squirming body and unlocking the door, so that he can fall out. She crawls out afterward, shoving him away so he can take cover, while she finds a stray rifle lying on the ground. She aims at the shadows she can see through the smoke, the rough outline of assailants, and shoots.

Five go down.

And then, another grenade goes off.

Toni turns her head. Rhodey is atop the other vehicle, firing into the dust and dirt as well. He catches her eyes and shouts, “get out here, Toni, get out of here!”

Toni looks over her shoulder. Howard is cringing behind a rock.

_I have to protect him, I have to save him, Maria wants me to save him._

She rushes over to the rock, crouching behind it, beside her father.

“We aren’t getting out of here,” Howard says, solemnly.

“Likely not,” Toni says, breathlessly.

“Can you?” Howard grits out. He’s bleeding from his gut, staining his shirt black-red. “Can you get out here? If you can, go, Toni, get out of here, get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Toni snaps.

“For fuck’s sake, Toni, do you think I want to watch you die here?” Howard demands, face contorting from pain.

Toni is stunned into silence.

“If you can get out of here, if you can survive this, survive,” he grunts, hand flattening over the gaping hole in his stomach. His hand clamps down around her wrist (she doesn’t remember the last time he touched her) “I need you to survive, Toni, _survive_.”

Toni doesn’t deign to give him an answer. She fishes inside his suit pocket, finding his phone, dialling quickly, her thin, limber fingers skipping over the buttons as quickly as possible.

_Come on, come on, come on._

A bomb lands beside them.

 _Stark Industries_ is written on the side in gleaming ink.

“No,” Howard chokes out and crawls on top of her, shielding her.

She doesn’t even have enough time to shove him off.

The bomb goes off and wildfire burns behind her eyes.

* * *

She squints into the darkness and screams when hands, slick with blood and her insides, cleave open her chest, dipping inside, as if washing their hands inside her. Long, dark fingers gleam into view, a shadow, black and ominous and meaning her death, holding something pink and grey, like fleshy pomegranate, in their grip and she realises, dully, that the person is holding her lungs.

Something cracks, and it’s her ribcage.

And then, then, someone fists their hand around her red, bleeding, beating heart and she sees sun and stars and she tries to fight, but they pin her down, her hands and her feet, and she tries to struggle, but it doesn’t seem to do anything, and she feels it, the life crushing out of her.

She thinks of James, _Yasha, moj soldat_ , and she dies there.

* * *

The breath cuts through her like a sword, and she opens her eyes a chink, dark and pallid and cold, lying on a filthy cot in a cave. It smells thickly of blood and milk, and a knife twists between her ribs as she tries to rise to her waist, to roll onto her side, to move at all.

Strange, she doesn’t know much of pain anymore.

She touches her chest, where the ache, the throb spirals from, and her fingers hit metal, startling an odd little noise out of her, under the thin cotton of the bandages wrapped around her chest, keeping her insides stitched together. The colour leaches out of her face, leaving everything hard and ugly.

There are wires, she slowly realises, and she grips them and tugs, because she’s always been the girl to poke at a naked power socket, and gasps like she’s choking when her body erupts in blistering agony, and her vision whites out, fleetingly.

When she comes to, she’s still lying on the cot, and she manages to twist her head to the side, finding an electromagnet on the other end of those wires, propped up on a table beside her cot. She grips the sheets, and then the metal frame underneath the thin mattress, and manages to heave herself up to her waist, even as fire licks through her chest at every jolt.

A man sits at the other end of the cave, stirring something thick and meaty in a pot over a flame, humming to himself.

She lifts her eyes and finds the camera mounted on the wall.

 _Big Brother is watching_ , she thinks.

“What did you do to me?” she rasps, her voice coming out like a serrated knife, sharp and full of fury.

“Do _to_ you?” the man questions, half offended, rounding on her.

He’s old, with hollowed out skin, bruises under his eyes, balding hair and half-moon spectacles.

“I saved you,” he corrects.

Toni swallows, thickly. She fists her hands around the wires in her chest. “I wouldn’t call this saving,” she mutters.

“Yes, well, when you have shrapnel in your chest, racing towards your heart, it most certainly is,” the man says, dryly.

“Shrapnel?” she questions.

The man sighs. “How much do you remember?”

Toni’s brow furrows, as she thinks. “We were ambushed in our vehicles, on our way back to the base. My father, he tried to shield me from the bomb, is he… where is he?” she says, making it a half-plea, half-demand.

She was supposed to protect him.

The man gives her a soft, sad, sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. They only brought you in,” he hesitates for an agonising moment. “But, Ms Stark, you almost died, you died a few times while I was operating on you, if your father, if he tried to shield you… I’m sorry,”

“He’s dead, then,” she says, dully.

“Yes, I think so.”

Toni nods and looks away.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the man offers.

“I promised my mother I’d protect him,” she says, ruefully. “I failed.”

“He was your father; I think he’d have rather protected you,” he points out.

“He was old,” Toni snorts, humourlessly. “He shouldn’t have been there.” She looks down at her chest, wishing and willing away the image of her father’s bloodshot eyes, wide with fear and resolve as he climbs on top of her. “You said, shrapnel.”

“Ah, yes,” the man sighs. “I’ve seen many wounds like this in my village. The walking dead, we called them, because it took a week for the barbs to reach vital organs. I anchored a magnetic suspension system to the plate. It’s holding the shrapnel in place... at least for now.”

She looks at the camera.

“That’s right,” he says, drawing her eyes. “Smile. They’re watching.”

The door swings open.

The man drops his spoon, puts his hands on his head, fear-flooded and almost limp with subservience.

“Stand up! Do as I do. Now!”

Toni climbs to his feet, as men with guns storm through.

“Listen to me,” the man hisses in her ear. “Whatever they ask you, refuse. You understand? You must refuse.”

There’s a bright orange watch on the man who leads their assault. One of the soldiers, the one who asked Howard for a photo, he’d been wearing it.

“Welcome Antonia Stark, the daughter of the greatest mass murderer in the history of America. It’s a great honour.”

The man who’d saved her attempts to translate. She shakes her head.

“I understand him,” she says.

The man who has guns pointed at her and her companion looks her up and down like a prize horse, like something he’d like to mount, and says, “You are not your father. I wanted your father, but you will have to do. I hope, for your life, you have his skill. I want you to build this for me-” he hands her a photo of the Jericho missile Howard had been demonstrating for the air force. “You will build for me Jericho missile your father was demonstrating.”

Toni stares him down, her eyes cold, empty, flat. “I refuse,” she says, slowly.

The man’s face contorts with rage. “Yinsen, correct her,” he orders.

Yinsen, the man who saved her, strikes her across the face. She’s faced worse.

“You refuse?” the man barks at her, spit flying. “You will do everything I say. I am the great Abu Bakar. You are alive only because of my generosity. I would have left you to die in the desert, to be eaten by dogs. I would have given you to my men to do as they please; they have not fucked a woman in months, they would’ve ruined you, but I thought, one Stark, an alive Stark, even if she is but a woman, is useful. You are nothing. _Nothing_. I will not be refused. I will see you dead first.”

With that, Abu Bakar spoons some of what Yinsen had been cooking over the fire, shaking with satisfaction.

And then, he leaves.

The door slams shut.

“Perfect,” Yinsen sighs. “You did very well, Ms Stark.”

Toni stares at him.

“This is good,” Yinsen comments. “I think they’re starting to trust me.” He returns to his cooking. “Well, that’s the end of my plan.”

“I won’t make anything for them,” she says, flatly.

“You will try. Refusing is not an option with these men,” Yinsen points out.

“They cannot do anything to me that has not already been done,” she says, vaguely, with a thin smile.

* * *

They start with drowning her in a trough full of dirty water.

If she didn’t have the super soldier serum, if she didn’t heal as well and as quickly as she could, she would worry that the bacteria might infect the still-open wounds around the electromagnet in her chest.

It takes six of them to hold her down, even as she fights, even as she kills three of them in the process, but they finally get her in the water. She breathes it in, the water is in her eyes, her ears, her nose, her throat, and it burns, it does, but it burns less than what she remembers, being twelve and afraid and the commander staring down at her, so disappointed with her failure.

They throw her back into the cell with Yinsen when they’re done, when they think they’ve won.

Yinsen wipes her down, cleans her wounds carefully, methodically.

“You’ll die like this,” he points out.

“It’s not so easy to kill me,” Toni says.

“Does that mean you have a plan?” he asks.

“Why? Would you be interested?” Toni says, slyly.

Yinsen just offers her a half-smile.

* * *

She miniaturises the arc reactor in her father’s facility, small enough that she can wrap her fingers around it, and she gives it to Yinsen to put into her chest, to replace the electromagnet.

He stares down at it for a moment. “This is dangerous,” he eases out.

“Yes, it could blow this desert to kingdom come.”

“And you want to put this in your body,” Yinsen says, slowly.

“Yes.”

“Forgive me for asking, Ms Stark, I know enough of about your history to be circumspect, but are you mad?”

Toni laughs; it’s the first time she’s laughed since leaving James’ side, so bright, so proud, like she’s at home, having a drink with Pepper, watching terrible Real Housewives episodes with Peggy and Sharon.

“No, I am not.” Toni palms the arc reactor, speculatively. “I tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.”

Yinsen raises an eyebrow.

“You put this in my chest without killing me – I’d prefer to remain alive – and I will tell you my story.”

“I know your story.”

“You don’t,” Toni says, heavily. “You really don’t.”

Yinsen’s eyes gleam (she’s seen it in him, the ache of curiosity; it matches the ache in her).

Finally, he nods.

* * *

When Toni gets the arc reactor, there is no anaesthetic.

It’s just her, Yinsen, his quick, deft fingers and a mouth full of leather.

The pain she feels, when Yinsen cuts out the electromagnet and gives her the arc reactor inside, which goes deeper and wider than any car battery and requires that he carve out more of her ribs, more of her lungs, more of her red, bleeding, beating heart, it is incomparable.

She wonders if this is what James remembers from when he lost his arm, if it was the rocks or HYDRA that took it from him, if he remembers waking up with it half there, while HYDRA worked on him, if he was alive and watching as they cut off the rest of it at the shoulder, having thought whatever remained of his arm from the fall was poisoned, diseased flesh.

Toni thinks this is worse.

But she bears it well, while Yinsen works on her.

She watches him, everything he does, her eyes huge and dawn-dark and wary. He lets out a low, shuddering breath the first time he cuts into her, into the fresh word around the car batter, tracing a hole in her chest for him to take the electromagnet out – he knows how to do surgery, he’s very good at it, he has plenty of experience, nimble fingers, after all, but this is different, this patient of his is alive and watching and he is doing something which no one has ever or will ever do in this world, something that cannot be repeated.

Her lifeblood even sprays across Yinsen’s face, thick and gleaming, and for a long, breathless moment, when Yinsen cuts away slivers of fat and flesh from her lungs and then, her heart, she thinks she’ll die like this, under the knife, like a pig for its meat, staring up at this man with dark, half-dead eyes, welled up and blurring.

And then, it’s over, then, Yinsen is stitching her up, putting her back together again, making her as whole as she can be, shushing her, wiping the blood from her skin and then, his face, dabbing the sweat from her face and her neck.

When she can open her mouth and the words don’t die on her tongue, when she feels her skin stretching and pulling and healing around the arc reactor, allowing this foreign, unforgiving thing cleaving her body in two to become part of it, and she knows, she will be half a being without it (she wonders, is this what James thinks of his arm? Does he feel whole with it, without it? Does he hate it because HYDRA gave it to him? Why has she not asked him this before? Why hasn’t she said to him, _I’ll make you a new one, one that’s just yours, one that they never touched_?).

“Thank you,” she says, finally.

Yinsen sighs and leans back, squeezing her shoulder, no tension, no fight, until she stops shaking (he reminds her of Jarvis; she thinks that’s why she feels so tangled up in this man).

“That story of yours better be good, Stark,” he says, with a half-smile.

She wants to laugh, but it hurts.


	8. viii.

“So, when you were born, your soulmate, who was brainwashed by a Nazi organisation into acting as their exclusive executioner, stole you from a hospital and you were raised as an assassin,” Yinsen says, slowly, dwelling on the words.

Toni gulps down the water, tasting blood and metal in her mouth.

“Essentially, yes,” she replies.

“But you escaped, both of you,” Yinsen continues.

“Yes, it was many years ago now, back in 1995.”

“And your soulmate is Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend, who supposedly died in 1945 but didn’t die.”

“Yes.”

“Because he was injected by a variant of the enhancing serum given to Captain America while he was a prisoner of war during the World War II.”

“Yes.”

Yinsen shakes her head. “That was one hell of a story,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face.

“It’s why I don’t tell it to many people,” Toni says with a half-hearted, strained smile. “Consider yourself one of the lucky few.”

“So, that article that came out all those years ago about child trafficking-” Yinsen trails off.

“An appropriate analogy for what I went through,” Toni says, carefully. “Not true in all aspects. There was… abuse, neglect, torture, humiliation, indoctrination, rape, murder.” She lifts her eyes. “So, when I said that these men here couldn’t do to me what hadn’t already been done, well…”

“You weren’t lying,” Yinsen finishes.

“Pretty much.”

“So, you have a plan, I’m guessing.”

Toni cocks her head. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t believe you miniaturised a sustainable energy source and had me implant it in your chest for laughs,” Yinsen says, dryly.

Toni slides to her feet with a smile and holds out her hand. “Come, Yinsen, let me show you what I’m going to do.”

* * *

The armour is cold and clean, shining bright silver, and in the dim light of the cave, she touches it and thinks it might have been her knight, her loyal knight to slay the monsters.

She never had the chance to outgrow knights, she never relied on them in the first place.

She’s always slain her own monsters.

“This is going to do the trick?” Yinsen says.

“This is going to get us out of here.”

When she turns, her eyes are fire-bright.

* * *

She traces the name on her wrist before she straps herself in the armour.

_I’m coming back to you, Yasha. Wait for me a little while longer and I’ll come back to you._

Yinsen checks the armour one final time, hands shaking.

“Everything’s locked in, nothing feels lose?” he asks, tersely.

“Everything is fine; go to the computer,” she soothes, sensing his nerves wound up tight.

Yinsen shudders over the computer, as the soldiers outside grow suspicious of what they’re doing in here. Yinsen stumbles over the Hungarian, and Toni fills in the blanks.

And then, Yinsen picks up a gun, his dark eyes setting with resolve, and he’s gone.

Toni sucks in air through her teeth, watches the computer load slowly, hating it for its lethargy, hearing the sound of gunshots and screams.

And finally, the armour breaks away, the cave blackens like night, and the metal door swings open, soldiers breaching through.

 _Incompetent_ , she sneers and fires.

It’s not the same as having a solid gun in her hand, or breaking a man’s neck with a twist of her wrist, but this armour, around her, it is fire and rage and strength and it is her in a way that the Engineer never was.

She makes quick work of the soldiers that enter. Their bullets do nothing to the shell of the armour, and she stalks forward in clunky steps and throws one through a stone wall and his skull cracks.

When she storms out, making her way through the winding tunnels, that is where she finds Yinsen, lying atop sacks full of grain, shirt streaked with drying blood.

She removes the gauntlet first, touches his skin and finds him warm.

Yinsen’s eyes flicker open, his dark pupils blooming.

“Antonia,” he sighs.

“Yinsen,” she says, flatly. “We need to get out of here.”

“I’m dying, Antonia.” Yinsen offers her a half-smile.

She knows, she can smell the blood, hear the slowing heartbeat, sluggish and thick, she can see the holes in his body.

“I can carry you,” she says, confidently.

“Through the desert?” Yinsen says, amused, and then, winces. “You would not make very far hauling me on your back.”

“Your wife, your children, they wouldn’t want you to give up. Let me take you back to them,” she says, fiercely, gripping at his hand.

Yinsen chokes out a laugh and then groans. The wounds on his chest bleed, soaking through his shirt.

“My wife, my children, they’re dead, Antonia,” he rasps, eyes edged with tears.

Toni’s lungs squeeze in tight.

“My wife, her name was, her name was Nasima.”

She can see _Nasima_ written on his wrist.

“We had a, we had a boy and a girl, Amir and Saba. It’s alright, Antonia, it’s alright. I will be with them now.”

Toni stares down at him, eyes dull. “Thank you for saving me life.”

Yinsen’s hand tightens around hers. “Don’t waste it,” he says, savagely. “Don’t waste your life, Antonia.”

His hand goes slack, and he’s dead.

For a brief moment, she lingers over his corpse and then, sighs. She presses her mouth to his forehead and slides to her feet, donning the gauntlet, donning the helmet, and stalks forward, like a wolf hunting its prey.

That’s what they are now, the Ten Rings, they killed Yinsen, they killed Nasima and Amir and Saba, and now, they are her prey.

And she burns them all before throwing herself up in the sky.

* * *

She lands in the desert with an almighty crash, the armour strewing in pieces around her. She groans, her body aching like she’s been squished down under a hydraulic press, and she throws the helmet off with a growl. She climbs out of the ditch in sand she’d made for herself and stares down at it, what is left of the armour, and shakes her head.

She peers the other way, sees the stretch of sun-blinded desert beyond her, and thinks, _great, fucking great._

And so, she begins her journey.

The sun blinds her, as she lifts her eyes, licking along her skin until her skin burns, and for a brief, agonising moment, she wonders what it would be like to lie here, to die here, in the sand, under the sun, and finally, she shakes her head.

This is not the place where she dies.

She pads forward, over each hill, only to come to another hill, and she screeches to the sky like a dying cat, shaking with an empty, useless rage, because this desert is endless and who would ever find her here? Her gaping, cramping belly rolls with each step, and her arm burns, and her chest twists and pulses painfully, the arc reactor stretching against the raw, flayed skin around it.

Not for the first time, she wishes she had been slower with the deaths of the Ten Rings; they had made her delicate and aware of her body’s frailty in a way that she had never been before – Toni was not made for frailty.

The wind changes around her, and she forces herself to look up into the blustery sunlight. Whatever is left of her heart digs hard into her lungs when she sees the metal of a helicopter’s blade cut right through the air, and an ugly, wracked sob drags out of her chest when it lands a few paces ahead of her.

James jumps out, rushing forward at a pace that no human can meet, and Toni crumples, so quickly, so painfully, just in time for James to seize her into an embrace, holding her hard enough to bruise (she doesn’t mind; she’s always loved the marks he leaves on her).

“Yasha,” she moans, and she thinks this is the first time in three months she has adequately used her heart and lungs.

James just laughs against the hollow of her throat.

“Where did you go, _malina moya_?” he rasps.

His hands are enormous on her body and Toni clutches at him, digging her nails into his shoulders. He pulls back, pressing his thumbs right into the dark bruises under her eyes, matched in his face. He looks hungry and haunted, as if sleep has evaded him for months, and her composure slips, crawling into his lap right then and there, in the middle of the desert, welling up inside her like a floodgate is breaking.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” James says, roughly, something looming behind his eyes, sharp as a knife.

“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” she practically sobs, her voice coming out as a high, grating whine. “I didn’t want to leave you, I didn’t, Yasha, I swear.”

“I know,” James soothes, smoothing her hair back, out of her face, reeking of sweat and blood and dirt though it is. “I know, doll. I’m here now, I’m here, Toni.”

Toni nods against his shoulder, as his hands crawl up her spine, and now, only now, does she feel like something that had fisted in her ribs had undone itself.

“How was the fun-vee?”

Toni looks over James’ shoulder, only to meet warm, brown eyes, so familiar, and she chokes.

“You’re not dead, then,” she says, flatly.

Rhodey shrugs. “Not so easily, babe,” he teases.

Toni shakes her head. “I low-key hate you right now,” she mutters under her breath.

Rhodey chuckles and sinks onto the sand beside them, gripping her shoulder with his big, deft hand.

“Next time,” he says, gruffly, full of emotion. “Next time, you ride with me, okay?”

Toni nods, and James kisses her sweetly on the sharp bone in her cheek.

* * *

They force her down onto the bed once they’re back at the base, James and Rhodey both, despite her many protests.

“I’m fine,” she insists.

“Toni,” Rhodey sighs. “You were held prisoner in a cave for three months, and after that, you trekked through the fucking desert. You need to see someone, least of all for that thing in your chest.” He inclines his head.

“I really don’t,” Toni reassures. She touches her chest, over the arc reactor, taps it in quick succession, hearing the hollow metallic song of the metal cutting through her ribcage. “The serum dealt with everything,” she says, her voice hushed.

“Toni,” James begins, uncertainly, peering at it but not quite peering at it.

“There were troubles, at the beginning,” Toni says, quickly. “But the serum dealt with the infection. There’s plenty of scarring, but the serum won’t heal that.”

She doesn’t look at James, but she knows him well enough to know that he’s thinking of his shoulder, of the red, raw lines like claw marks all over his shoulder that never healed, not since HYDRA fixed that damnable arm, cutting off the healthy bicep muscle so they could give him something strong, imperishable, everything they wanted from the Winter Soldier.

Rhodey takes a deep breath. “You’re absolutely sure there’s no chance of you getting sick?” he says, voice thin and taut.

Toni touches his strong jaw. “If I were going to get sick, it would’ve happened in that cave, Rhodey, while I was barely eating and drinking filthy water and having multiple complex cardiothoracic surgeries in a bacteria-infested grotto. I didn’t, so I won’t now.”

Rhodey grinds down on his teeth and looks away, finally saying, “okay, I’ll, uh, I’ll go let the doctors know, give you guys some time together, alone, before the stampede hits.”

Rhodey tangles their fingers together and squeezes. “Good to see you back, kid,” he says, gruffly.

Toni scowls at him on his way out. “You’re less than two years older than me,” she complains.

“Yeah, well, you look like a toddler, so…” Rhodey trails off with a smirk.

She throws the paper cup on her bedside table at his head, and he laughs, ducking through the door.

James takes her hand, after he’s gone. “You’re really okay, _carevna_?” he murmurs, staring up at her through the low light of his dark lashes.

Toni juts out her bottom lip. “Just because I was in captivity for three months does not mean you’re allowed to call me princess,” she warns.

James sighs and laughs a little breathlessly, and then, he ducks his head, staring furiously at his empty lap.

“Hey, hey,” she soothes, threading her fingers through his hair.

James shakes his head, his face marked with lines, smudges under his eyes like bruises, like he’s been punched twice over.

“You were gone… you were gone for months, Toni,” he says, roughly.

Toni kisses him, and he kisses back like he’s drowning, clutching at her, holding her hard enough to bruise if she had a more delicate stature, and practically drags her onto his lap.

Her nails dig into his shoulders and she sobs into his mouth, and he hushes her, like he might an unhappy, terrified kitten. She blazes to life at his touch, wanting all of him on her, around her, and it’s almost as if there isn’t enough air in this world to consume between the two of them.

“I missed you, I missed you so much,” she drags out.

His hand hovers in the hair, before he lays it out on top of the arc reactor, thumbing the scar tissue left almost reverently.

“You tell me the truth; is it safe?” he asks, carefully, full of weight.

“It is, it is now,” Toni reassures. “It wasn’t before, the first time. When the bomb blew up, the doctor that treated me in the cave, he put an electromagnet in to keep the shrapnel from piercing my heart, but it was only temporary; it wouldn’t have worked in the long run.”

“So, you made this?” James says, finger trailing around the edge of the reactor.

“I did, I miniaturised the arc reactor in my father’s company headquarters in Malibu, and put it into my chest.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” James points out. “Putting a highly reactive device in your chest cavity?”

“Oh, it is,” Toni says, slowly.

“Toni,” James groans.

Toni laughs, breathlessly, grabbing James’ face so she can kiss him hard on the mouth. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” James sighs.

“Then, trust that I can and will take care of myself.”

“Fine,” James mutters. He rests a hand on the crown of her hair and kisses her gently on her cheekbone. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

James gives her a dry look and pushes her hair out of her eyes. “What happened with the Ten Rings, Toni?”

“Well, there was serious, invasive cardiothoracic surgery involved,” she says, dryly. “Some drowning and beating when I wouldn’t make weapons like they asked.”

James’ eyes cloud with a black rage. “Is that so?” he says, strained.

“They’re all dead now,” Toni says, confidently. “I killed them all. I won’t…” she clenches and unclenches her fist on top of her thigh. “I won’t let anyone turn me into a slave again,” she says, fierce and cold.

James smiles a smile that’s no smile at all and tangles their hands together, raising them to his mouth.

“I couldn’t save you this time,” he says, face crumbling so quickly and so painfully.

Toni shakes her head, gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise. “I saved _myself_ ,” she insists. “I saved myself, Yasha, I had to save myself. I had to, I had to know that I could. I had to save myself.”

“Toni,” James begins, gently. “Toni, the sad thing is that you think you don’t always save yourself.”

Toni looks away before he can see her eyes edged with tears – she’s quite wrung dry of tears now.

“When we left HYDRA, I didn’t save you,” James says, roughly, his metal hand curled around the bone of her hip. “I didn’t save you from him, from any of them. You saved yourself and then, you saved me. You have always saved yourself.”

Toni’s throat works. She lifts her chin, almost defiantly, flashing a smile at him, sharp and sudden and stricken. “I would never have… I would never have been able to save myself, if you hadn’t saved me first.”

James shakes his head. “One day, one day, you’ll see what I see in you,” he says, so unbearably soft and fond.

Toni’s response is to punch him in his flesh arm. “One day, so will you.”

James pulls her in close and laughs against the hollow of her throat, kissing her where her pulse thuds.

“And Howard? What happened to him?” he asks, carefully.

“He’s dead,” Toni says, flat and dead. “When they attacked, the Ten Rings, our convoy blew up. I tried to fight, as best as I could, but my father was hiding and I had to protect him, so I shielded him, but then there was a bomb. The Ten Rings had one of my father’s bombs, and it was about to go off, and he, Howard, he threw himself in front of me, shielding me from the blast. I guess he died on impact, or he died in the desert, because I was the only one who they brought back to the cave.”

“Oh, _malina moya_ ,” James sighs and kisses her again.

“He saved me, Yasha,” she says, her voice strained, taut at the edges. “He _saved_ me.”

“He was your father, _malina moya_ ,” James says, kindly. “Of course, he saved you. He loved you.”

“He loved me,” Toni echoes, lungs aching with the effort. “He loved me.”

* * *

Toni and James are forced to break apart when Maria rushes inside the hospital room, dark bruises under her eyes like she’d been punched twice over. She sees Toni sitting atop the cot and practically lunges forward, manic, throwing her arms around her, clutching at her desperately, hands like steel cuffs.

“Thank God, thank God, you’re alive, you’re safe,” she mutters against Toni’s temple in Spanish.

Her eyes pass over Toni, like she might inspect a prize cow at the market, searching her for bruises, for marks, for new scars webbing across her body. Her eyes halt at the arc reactor, the light, the gleam of metal she can see through Toni’s thin hospital gown, but she doesn’t comment.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out.

Maria blinks at her, almost owlishly, confused.

“Dad,” she says, slowly. “I’m sorry, I should’ve protected him, I should’ve saved him. You only sent me with him so I could-”

“Toni,” Maria says, her voice like the edge of a knife, cutting her halfway. “Toni, if there could ever be a choice as to who could come back from this place, it’s an awful thing to say because I loved him, I loved him for years, I loved him while you were away from us, and now, he’s gone, but I would’ve chosen you. A good mother, no matter how much she loves her husband, would always choose her daughter. I would always choose you.”

Toni’s throat works, thick and cloying, and she nods, looking away. The hard line of Maria’s cheekbones soften, as she smooths back her hair.

“I would always choose you, _mija_ , I would always choose you.”

* * *

“What are you two doing here?” Toni asks, sceptically, when Sharon and Pepper storm into her hospital room.

Sharon shrugs, her mouth a thin, tense line. “I have a street cred.”

“Bullshit, since when?” Toni retorts.

Sharon swells up like an apoplectic frog, affronted. “Okay, you know what, Assassin Barbie-”

“Maybe,” Pepper interjects, gently, exchanging a bored, long-suffering look with James, which Toni and Sharon are equally offended by. “Maybe, this isn’t the best time for this?”

Pepper squeezes Sharon’s hand, and the calf-like, adoring look that Sharon gives Pepper makes Toni breathe easier.

She’d waited for so long to introduce the two, making certain that Sharon was well over sixteen so she wouldn’t do anything too stupid, like throw herself at a much older woman (in her defence, she sees a lot of herself in Sharon, and she once would’ve done the same thing with James). Sharon had been furious at first, when she found out that Toni had known who _Virginia Potts_ was, that she had been friends with Sharon’s soulmate for years without telling her, but years had passed and Sharon and Pepper were happy and disgustingly adorable together, and Sharon had long-since forgiven her.

Sharon sighs and looks away. “How are you?” she asks, her voice infinitely gentler.

“I’ve been better,” Toni says, honestly.

Sharon squeezes her hand. “We were very, very worried, you stupid bitch,” she says, her voice thick. “Don’t fucking do that again, okay?”

“Okay,” Toni says, softly.

Pepper wraps her long, thin arms around Toni, squeezing her. Toni sighs into her shoulder. “We missed you, and we’re so glad you’re okay.”

Her eyes are red when Pepper pulls back, and Toni touches her cheek gently, shaking her head.

“Please don’t cry,” she says, awkwardly.

“Fuck off, I’m not crying,” Pepper sniffs, rubbing at her eyes.

“You are, it’s sweet,” Toni teases.

“You know what, I liked it better when you were kidnapped.”

“Well, maybe you could arrange for something, considering your newly-developed street cred,” Toni drawls.

“You know what, Stark-”

Toni reaches and yanks Sharon down with a yelp, wrapping her arms around her like an octopus. With a second’s thought, she does the same with Pepper, and James just stares at the tangle of limbs that they make, eyebrows drawn, and finally, barks a laugh like a building crashing, when they pull him into the pile.

* * *

There’s a stretcher waiting for her when she disembarks from the plane, and she glowers it away, teeth bared in offence.

“Toni,” James sighs.

“I am fine,” she grits out.

“I believe you, I’m just-”

“If you believed me, you wouldn’t have asked for a fucking stretcher.”

“Don’t get pissed off at me,” James snaps. “You were gone for three fucking months and I found you collapsed in the desert, dying from heat stroke with a nuclear bomb lodged in your chest. I was worried. I was concerned. I am _still_ concerned. Don’t get pissed off at _me_.”

Something in Toni withers like defeat and she threads their hands together, clenching hard and fast.

“I’m sorry,” she offers.

He huffs and looks away. “You were gone for three fucking months,” he says, roughly.

“I thought about you constantly for those three months,” she says, softly.

“So did I,” James agrees. “Just… don’t go anywhere, away from me, for a little while. I need… I’ve gotten really used to you. I hadn’t noticed.”

Toni laughs a little. “I’ve gotten really used to you too.”

He raises their tangled hands up to his mouth and kisses her knuckles.

“Come on, there’s a car waiting.”

“A car?” Toni’s brow draws in. “Why a car? Aren’t we going home?”

James visibly hesitates. “They, uh, they want you to make a statement at the company.”

“Who’s _they_?” Toni asks, suspiciously.

James grimaces. “Stane, to say the least.”

“I don’t like that man,” Toni declares. “But why do they need _me_ to make a statement?”

James sighs. “Your father’s will was read while you were… gone. It looks like his controlling interest in the company was left to you completely.”

For a moment, Toni is unblinking and not breathing. “What?” she says, more demands.

“He left you his company, _carevna_ ,” James says, gently.

“I don’t want his company,” she says, flatly.

“I know,” he soothes. “But, uh, I don’t think they’re going to leave us alone until you say _something_?”

Toni’s shoulders slump forwards. “Fine, but I want cheeseburgers.”

James’ hand falls to the crown of her hair and smooths it back, out of her eyes. “I’ll get you all the cheeseburgers you want,” he promises.

Toni has never wanted this man more.

* * *

She climbs out of the car in front of the Stark Industries headquarters and right into her mother’s arms.

“Thank you for doing this,” she says, her voice muffled by Toni’s thin, bony shoulder (even with the serum, even with her fierce appetite for carbohydrates, she’s never put on the weight she’d never had as HYDRA’s servant).

“I don’t want to,” Toni replies, cautiously. “But I will, for him. He saved my life. I owe this much at least.”

Maria pulls her back, her eyes fierce and cold. “You don’t owe anyone anything, _mija_ , not even that old man I loved so much. He loved you, we loved you, and we would both die for you in an instant. You owe us _nothing_.”

 _I do,_ she thinks, mournfully. _I killed your daughter, and I live in her place now, and you love me for it. How could I not owe you?_

She offers her mother a strained smile, and Maria touches her cheek, smoothing back her hair, out of her eyes. She steps away, and Obadiah Stane is standing behind her, tall and broad and fat, with greying, thinning hair and a face full of empty joy, watching her with hungry eyes that remind her of the commander.

God, that’s an awful thought.

“Look at you,” he sighs and crushing her into his embrace.

His arms are like steel cuffs and pressed against his chest, she finds it hard to believe and is so focused on refraining from punching him in the balls that she sways when he lets her go.

“Just won’t die, will you?” Obadiah roars with laughter. “How’s your arm doing, kid?”

_I’m fucking thirty-nine years old. I am not your fucking kid._

Toni fixes her mouth in a semblance of a smile. “It’s fine, just a sprain,” she says, casually.

“How’d you even get away from those bastards?” Obadiah asks, curiously, his hazel eyes sharp, ever watchful.

“I guess I was just lucky,” she says, her voice light and airy, _you pig person._

Obadiah’s eyes flicker over to James, who shoulders Toni like a pillar of bones, the only thing strong and perfect in Toni’s existence, and her soulmate tangles their hands together, as if knowing exactly what she was thinking.

“James,” Obadiah says, pleasantly enough, face contorting slightly, because Toni knows that he’s never been able to get a good read on either of them, Howard’s absentee, child-trafficking victim daughter and her strange, silent soulmate.

Toni knows he hates that he can’t read her, hates that a woman, the little slip of a thing that she is, is able to confound him so, the big, strong man that he is, but she knows that he hates James even more, thinking him the stronger of the two, the real villain in his story, the real mastermind.

“Mr Stane,” James says, politely, with effusive Brooklyn charm, offering his hand.

Toni bites back an eager grin when she sees Obadiah wince at the grip.

“I would’ve met you at the hospital, you know.” Obadiah clucks his tongue like he’s so worried about her.

 _That’s a lie,_ she thinks.

They’ve met on few and far between occasions, with Howard and Maria always watching, always protective (not because they distrusted, disliked Obadiah, but because they were possessive now; they had lost so much time with her that they weren’t willing to give any more of it to anyone else).

But he looks at her now, like he is her father, and it makes her stomach turn.

_You don’t know me like that._

“Well, I know you wanted to have this press conference. I thought I’d save you the trouble and meet you here,” she says, thinly, her mouth pale and pinched.

Obadiah sighs, as if this is just par for the course for their relationship (she’s always hated that, people acting like they know her better than they ought to). “Fine, we should probably get inside.”

Toni’s hand tightens around James’, almost punishingly, as they walk into the lobby of the company’s headquarters, which is absolutely packed with reporters. He helps her up to the platform, as she pretends to ache more than she does. She gazes out over the podium and takes in a shuddering breath.

She’s only done this one before, and she’d hated it then too.

She licks her lips.

There’s a woman at the front, blonde hair like silver and a fierce, cold look in her eyes, as they drag over Toni, like she finds her wanting already.

“Ms Stark, what happened to your father?” she asks, immediately.

“He died,” Toni says, bluntly, and the air falls still. “There was a bomb, from the, uh, the terrorist group that kidnapped me, and he threw himself on top of me when it went off.”

“You seem pretty blasé about the fact that your father was murdered,” the woman says, pointedly. 

“He was 92,” Toni says, coldly. “Were you expecting him to come back after such an ordeal, totally healthy?”

The reporter’s face flushes with colour.

“Or maybe you were the ones hoping for him to die,” she continues.

Obadiah juts in, stepping up. “Toni, maybe just focus-”

Toni looks away.

“Ms Stark?”

There’s a man beside the woman who’d asked about Toni’s father. He has enormous bambi eyes, tall and slight, and looks like he just wants to do his job. She peers at him.

“Yes?”

“What happened over there?”

Toni licks her lips. “I’ve been aware of what my father’s company does for a very long time, even before I came home. But I saw weapons, with my name on them, with my father’s name on them, with my mother’s name on them, in the hands of thugs, used to kill children. _Children_. I don’t like that. I don’t… a very long time ago, I was used to do things that no one would want to do. I’m not supposed to talk about that, and I can already sort of see angry faces staring at me at the back of this hall, but for the first time in a long time, I was responsible for something I didn’t and don’t want to be responsible for. I understand that my father’s will was read out while I was away, and I also understand that my father, for whatever reason, decided to leave me his controlling interest in Stark Industries. I also understand that I was sworn in as Chairwoman of the Board a couple of days ago. So, my understanding is that I’m able to make certain decisions regarding the company’s direction,” she looks at Pepper then, who nods, even if her face is tilted in confusion. “So, as of this moment onwards, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries. That’s all I have to say.”

And the room explodes.


	9. viii.

Obadiah reads her the riot act, of course, almost spitting at her in his fury. He might’ve even tried to grab her by the shoulders, if it weren’t for James sidling in between the two of them as a warning (she didn’t need his protection, not really, but Obadiah didn’t know that).

“You have no idea what the fuck you’re doing,” he roars at her. “You think just because your father was dumb enough to leave you his shares you can just waltz in and make decisions like this. You don’t belong here, Toni.”

Toni meets his eyes with a fierce, cold gaze of her own. “I know my father was killed by the same bombs he made, bombs that a terrorist group in Afghanistan somehow got their hands on, bombs that were supposed to protect the American military, but instead did a damn good job in wiping them from this Earth. You need to stop, and if you want to keep going, you’ll have to go through me.”

“We’ll force you out,” Obadiah swears.

Toni tilts her head. “You can try, but the damage is done.”

Obadiah glares at her. “You have any idea what you’ve fucking done. You just painted targets on our heads. Our stock is going to take a forty-point dive tomorrow.” He sighs and then, his expression becomes something like one of the Santa Claus figurines might have. “Look, kid, we are a weapons’ manufacturer. Turning this company around to make baby bottles is like trying to get a bear to walk on its hind legs.”

“So, because it’s inconvenient and not so easy, you want a body count to be your only legacy,” Toni says, slowly, coldly.

_I would give up everything to wipe away the red in my ledger, you sanctimonious prick. You just want more._

Obadiah scowls at her. “There isn’t anything else that we could do.”

“I’m sure there is. I think you just don’t want to explore it,” Toni scoffs.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

Toni shrugs. “You could develop the arc reactor.”

Obadiah snorts. “Come on, Toni. That was a publicity stunt. It’s not even cost-effective. Why would we hedge our bets on that of all things?” He sighs. “Look, I can appreciate your moral conscience, even if I don’t understand it myself, but you can’t just do these things without having a discussion with the people actually involved Toni. The fact is, you have no idea what you’re doing. And that’s not your fault. If you hadn’t been kidnapped, you might’ve been raised in all of this, but you weren’t, and you haven’t learned since you got back. That’s not your fault, of course,” he says, quickly. “But it just means you aren’t equipped to make these decisions. Look, just let me handle this from now on, okay. Your father and I were a team; I can be the same for you. But you have to lay low. Maybe, don’t talk to the press again. Can you do that for me?”

_No._

But she smiles, anyway (she’d become very good at smiling a false smile; the commander liked to order her to smile at him, so he could touch her hair and her mouth and pretend that she was a girl who loved him).

He believes her, just as the commander believed her.

* * *

Toni almost starts crying when she crosses the threshold into their house.

“Toni,” James says, alarmed. “Toni, is everything okay? Is it your chest? Should I take you back to the hospital?”

Toni shakes her head, smacking him on the chest. “Shut up, I’m fine. I’m just… ridiculously overemotional for some stupid reason, because I never thought I’d see this place again,” she says, her voice thick and wet.

“Toni,” James says, full of grief, his blue-grey eyes sad.

He doesn’t say anything else, he doesn’t need to; all he does is press his mouth to the crown of her head and squeeze her shoulders to him.

“Come on, the babies have missed you.”

Toni laughs, and her eyelashes are wet.

* * *

To his truth, the babies have missed her.

DUM-E, U and BUTTERFINGERS almost trample her by accident in their excitement to see her again, and she just laughs.

She ends up on the floor, by the end, as each of the robots desperately try to crawl into her lap, so she can pet them exclusively.

She nudges her nose against the metal strut of one of the robots, she’s not sure which one, she doesn’t really care, and stares off against the wall, as James sits beside her, hand in her hair, a comforting weight.

“J?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia?”

She had wanted Jarvis there, in the hospital, waiting for her. She had wanted him there with such a hard ache that her chest had hurt.

But she has JARVIS, she loves JARVIS.

“Will you read to us? _Matilda_ , I think.”

“Of course, miss. _It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful…_ ”

* * *

Toni goes for a shower after she’s done cuddling on the floor in her workshop. She switches on the hot water in their en-suite, undressing herself and pulling her hair from the ponytail, and peers at the décor, a porcelain sink and bathtub and shower, half the size of their master bedroom, with forest green drapes hanging over the toilet.

She touches the water, and it’s the perfect temperature.

But she can’t get inside.

She can’t force her feet to move.

“Toni? Toni, is everything okay?”

Toni turns, almost a sharp jerk of her head, when she hears the knock on the door.

“Toni, doll, can you open the door?”

James very rarely calls her doll, she muses.

She quite likes it, maybe not as much as _malina moya_ , but she likes it.

“Toni? Toni, I’m getting worried out here. Can you please open the door, doll? I just want to make sure you’re feelin’ okay?”

The Brooklyn accent is thick in his voice.

She finally gets her feet to move, turning towards the door to the bathroom. She unlocks the bolt and pulls the door open.

Almost instantaneously, he sees the scarring on her chest, the angry red webbing around the arc reactor, this strange, metal thing cleaving straight through her chest, between her breasts, and shame prickles on the back of her neck, her stomach curdling.

She remembers how he used to rest his head on her breast, as they slept, so she could run her fingers through his head, so he could hear her heart pounding in her chest.

She’s become inhospitable to him.

“Am I ugly now?” she asks, in a small voice. “Is that it?”

“What?” James’ brow knits together. “What are you talking about?”

Toni looks down, between her breasts, at the scarring on her chest, at the livid marks dragging all over her body, at the unsightly image the arc reactor makes, and bile rises in her throat.

She meets his eyes with a defiant look of her own.

“Am I ugly to you now?” she demands.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” James asks, bluntly. “Do you look at my arm and think I’m ugly? When we fuck, do you cringe away from my metal arm, the scarring on my shoulder? Does it turn you off?”

“Of course not,” Toni insists.

“So, what, you accept all of my body’s flaws, but I’m the shallow dick that wants you to look like one of the plastic girls on Cinemax?” James asks, voice flat.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s why you had the nerve to look me in the eye and ask me if I thought you were fucking ugly,” he growls, his voice distorted and thin. “You think, after all these years, after everything, that I’d, what, dump you, because you went through something just as fucking awful as what we went through with HYDRA? You think that’s all you mean to me? Do you really my reassurance, is that it, doll? After all these years, is that what you need from me?”

He stalks forward, and she backs up into the bathroom.

“You think there is anything in this world that you could do that could make me leave you?” he asks, his eyes needle-sharp. “You think when I say shit like I would the burn world to the ground to keep you fucking safe or that I would save you all the times, I’m just making shit up? That I’m just saying empty words? Do you have any idea what I went through these last three months? I combed the desert constantly for you, looking for you, praying that you were okay, that you were safe, that you had food, that they weren’t… fucking stripping the skin from your bones, that they weren’t raping your burnt corpse; all I thought about when I closed my eyes was _you_ , Toni.”

He pulls her in close, hard enough to bruise, and this hold, uncompromising and definitive, it makes her rediscover her lungs.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever known, will ever know,” he says, roughly, nudging his nose against hers. “Do I need to put my mouth on that pretty pussy of yours to remind you? I’ve missed that, y’know?”

Toni flushes with colour, growing warm right down to her fingers and toes, and she sways in his embrace.

“This isn’t about the arc reactor or the bruising or the scarring, is it?” he guesses.

Toni shakes her head against his breastbone.

“You wanna tell me what this is about?” He smooths a hand against the crown of her hair.

“I can’t get into the shower,” she admits, ashamed.

James leans back and blinks down at her, watching her careful and weighty.

“I just… I can’t get inside,” she says, vaguely. “I want to have a shower, I just… can’t get fucking inside,” she grits out, hating herself for it.

“Did something happen?” he asks, cautiously.

“They drowned me in Afghanistan,” Toni says, dully. “Like how… how the Commander did, after I failed, do you remember?”

Something looms behind his eyes, sharp as a knife. “I remember,” he says, flatly, his voice dead.

 _I would’ve killed him, a thousand times over, for you_ , she remembers him telling her. _I think of every time he touched you in front of me, touched you like he could lay claim to any part of you, like he could fucking own you, even when you were still a fucking child, and I should’ve killed him every time._

She blinks it away, the memory; thinking of the Commander now does nothing but make her deteriorate.

“I can’t get in now, I can’t get in, Yasha,” she says, her voice rough and wet. “I can’t have the water, the water touching me like that. I won’t… I won’t be able to breathe, so I can’t…”

James takes a deep, measured breath. “Okay, then. Can I help you?”

Toni blinks up at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you want to have a shower?” he asks.

Toni nods.

“Then, I can help you. Okay, you sit up here.” James lifts her up onto the counter of the vanity and fishes out a clean washcloth from underneath the sink. “And I’ll clean you up, okay?”

“Why?” Toni asks in a small voice, her look unsure and fragile.

James threads his big hand into her hair. “Because you are my world, and I hate seeing you hurting. It hurts me. Is that enough of a reason for me to do this?”

Toni’s throat flexes, just as James steps into the shower, so he can wet the washcloth. When he comes back, he scrubs her clean, gently, starting with her face, then her neck, her arms, before making his way to her breasts. He’s careful with the reactor, and slows down when she winces, the washcloth pulling at the still livid marks across her skin. He slopes down over the flat of her stomach, before going down to her thighs and calves and feet and back up again. He slips the cloth between her legs, and she bites her lip, feeling a silent spike of arousal at almost clinical touch.

He rinses out the washcloth and finds her a nice, fluffy towel to dry herself with and shrink into, while he finds her one of his shirts to throw over herself.

“There, all done,” he says, when he’s pulled the shirt over her hair and head, leaning back, satisfied.

“What, you’re just going to do that for me every day?” she demands, scoffing at the thought.

“Yeah, if that’s what you need me to do,” James says, shrugging.

“Why?” Toni asks, confused, feeling an acid rush of self-hatred.

James grips her knee and squeezes. “After all these years, you need to ask me why?” he asks, his voice low, like warm, summer honey.

Toni stares down at the big, deft hand on her knee, the hand she’s watched break bones, thumb guns with immense precision, but still holds her like she’s precious even when she knows she’s not, fucks her like she’s soft and sweet, and then, she lifts her eyes to meet his.

“Is this what love is?” she asks, feeling splayed open, wrecked, feeling flayed raw, like she’s missing her skin. “I don’t know what love is,” she admits, almost shamefully. “I thought… love is for children, isn’t it?” she asks, her voice a dark, wounded thing.

James looks at her like she’s something to be pitied, and she hates that. He cups her jaw, smoothing a thumb over the line of her cheekbone.

“I love you,” he says, his lip curling, self-deprecatingly. “I remember now. I didn’t remember for a long time. But I remember my mother, my father, my sisters. I remember how much I loved them.” He looks down at his lap. “They’re all gone now,” he murmurs, his eyes dark. “But you’re not, you’re here, with me, and I love you like I’ve loved nothing else in my life.”

Toni swallows and pins a look at his hand on her knee again. “How do you know?” she asks, her voice low. “How do you know that you love me?”

 _Love is for children_ , she repeats, almost as if reassuring herself.

He tangles their hands together and raises them to his chest, where his heart pounds. “‘Cause I feel you here,” he says, simply.

Toni huffs out a laugh. “And so, you just know?” she says, sceptically.

James shrugs. “Pretty much.” He chuckles. “I’m not sayin’ any of this so you’ll say it back, y’know? I love you, you are everything to me, and if you need me to, I will fucking wash you down like this every day until you can get into the shower. And if you need me to get in the fucking shower with you, I will do that too.”

Toni lifts an eyebrow at him and slots herself under his arm, warm and sweet and trusting. His hand lands on her hair, smooths it away from her eyes, her forehead, and she smiles up at him, like she can’t breathe without him. He lifts her up, so she can wrap her legs around him like an octopus, clinging, and she kisses him.

She can’t say the words, but she can do this.

* * *

“Where is Sergeant Barnes, miss?” JARVIS asks her.

“He’s gone to the VA for a session,” Toni says, simply, petting DUM-E like a sweet little puppy. “And then, he’s going for lunch with Sam. He didn’t want to, of course; he doesn’t want to spend too much time away from me. Fair enough, I don’t want to either. But he’s getting on my nerves now, and I need some time to myself.”

“I assume you mean figuratively?” JARVIS asks, dryly. “After all, you seem to have no issue in spending time with us.”

“You know you’re different, J,” Toni teases. “Plus, I need your help.”

She taps on the arc reactor in her chest deliberately.

“What were your intentions for this device, Miss Antonia?” JARVIS asks, curiously, as data from JARVIS’ scans race past her monitors.

“It powers an electromagnet which keeps the shrapnel from entering my heart. Can you recommend any upgrades?”

JARVIS huffs. “It is difficult to offer counsel in light of the fact that your stated intentions are inconsistent with your actions,” he points out, scathingly, in exactly the same tone his human predecessor would have used.

Toni ignores the grief that wells up in the back of her throat.

Jarvis has been dead for a while now; she only knew him for a few years, but she knows exactly what life she would’ve led with him if HYDRA had left her own, and she mourns for that as much as she mourns for the man she knew.

“What are you talking about?” she sniffs, clearing her throat. “That is ridiculous. That is exactly the purpose of this invention.”

The sensors scan deeper and deeper through the structure of the arc reactor, showing every speck, every atom that makes its function possible.

“The energy yield of this device outperforms your stated intention by eleven orders of magnitude,” JARVIS points out, almost smugly. “You could accomplish your stated goal with the power output of a car battery.”

Toni sighs and spins around, the calculations flashing at blinding speed all over the walls.

“Upgrade recommendations. List,” she orders.

“I dislike your tone, miss.”

“Why are you being so sassy today?” Toni asks, crossly.

“Shall I disable random pattern conversation?” JARVIS asks, snidely.

“No,” Toni says, quickly. She sighs. “You get me, J.”

“I don’t _get_ you, miss.”

“Can you please just make your recommendations now?” Toni demands.

“It would thrill me to no end.”

The monitor flashes, and a sleeker picture of the armour she’d made and donned in Afghanistan, one that clings to her lean, long figure, appears on the monitors. It’s beautiful thing, all neat, elegant lines and curves, and it makes her hot just to think about all that metal settling around her, warm and close, painfully intimate.

She lets herself be greedy, just this once.

“That’s more like it,” she says, smiling feline and contented.

* * *

Toni watches Jim Cramer’s absurd talk-show from her workshop, while James, Pepper and Sharon relax in her lounge room eating pizza for dinner.

“ _Stark Industries: I’ve got one recommendation. Ready? SEELLLL! Abandon ship! Does the Hindenburg ring any bells?_ ”

Cramer pushes one of his big red buttons on the screen, and Toni winces at the high, shrill sound of shrieking.

“Stupid, fucking-” Toni curses under her breath and shuts the television off.

She stares at the arc reactor in her hand, thick wire hanging limply out of the base.

“JARVIS, can you connect me to the lounge?” she asks. “Pepper? How big are your hands?”

Pepper’s bright face looms into view of the camera. “What?”

“How big are your hands?”

Pepper’s brow draws together. “I don’t understand-”

“Can you please come down here?” Toni asks, patiently.

Pepper creeps into the workshop, carefully, eyeing the walls like something is about to blow up, followed by an equally wary Sharon and James. All three startle when they see her lying down on a stretcher, naked from the waist up.

Sharon screws up her face and looks away. “Okay, this feels like incest,” she comments.

“It is not incest. Don’t be so melodramatic,” Toni sneers.

“I am not okay with this,” James says, slowly. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

Toni gives him a withering look. “Calm down, neither of them want to fuck me. Do you?” she says, pointedly.

Both Pepper and Sharon shake their heads furiously.

She sends a satisfied smile towards James. “There we go.”

“I still don’t like this,” James muses.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Pepper, show me your hands.”

Pepper frowns. “What?”

“Just show me your hands.”

Pepper hesitates, flinging an uncertain look at Sharon and James, who simply shrug. She raises her hand, palms facing Toni, so she can see the length and width.

She smiles, feline and contented. “Perfect, they’re small. I need you to help me.”

Pepper narrows her eyes. “With what?”

Toni gestures to the arc reactor splitting open the hollow between her breasts.

Pepper walks over, peering at the reactor and studiously avoiding the swell of Toni’s bare breasts.

“So that’s the thing that’s keeping you alive.”

“That’s the thing that’s keeping me alive,” Toni agrees. “It is now an antique. This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future.”

She holds up the new version of her arc reactor, bright as beaten metal.

“Amazing,” Pepper says, dryly, but there’s definitely a gleam of interest lurking behind her pale eyes.

“I’m going to swap them out and switch all functions to the new unit.”

James scowls, folding his broad arms over his broad chest. “Is it safe?” he demands.

Toni gives him a careful, measured look, blinking wide and innocent. “Completely,” she says, gently. “First, I need you to reach in and-”

Pepper frowns. “Reach into where?” she asks, her voice growing in pitch.

“The socket,” Toni says, patiently.

“What socket?”

Toni sighs. Her fingers twist the arc reactor, and it gives way with a shrill pop. She removes it and twirls her finger around the empty hole in her chest, lined with metal.

“That socket,” she gestures, her heart beginning to pound in her ribcage, sharp and angry. “Now, I need you to listen carefully, because you have to do this in a matter of minutes.”

Pepper makes a stifled sound of concern. “Or else what?”

“Or else I go into cardiac arrest,” Toni admits.

She winces at the pin-drop silence.

“What the hell are you talking about?” James shouts, surging towards Toni’s side, so he can peer inside the cavity in which the arc reactor had been sitting, as if he can see the moment when her heart stills.

Toni sighs and shoves his face with the flat of her palm. “You are very important to me, but there are some things that must remain a mystery between a man and a woman, and you peering into my chest cavity is one of those things,” she scolds.

“I thought you said this was safe!” Sharon barks like a building crashing, storming over.

Toni drags her hand over her face. “Look, I didn’t want any of you to panic, which you are doing right fucking now, I might add, so clearly my concerns were founded.”

“Oh, my God,” Pepper moans. “We should, uh, we should call an ambulance, we should take her to the hospital-”

James makes an aborted move like he’s about to lift her in his arms and run all the way to the emergency room, but the glare she levels at him in response would have stripped bark from a tree, and he quietens.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to panic. Clearly, I was underestimating what it would take, because you’re all fucking panicking,” she snaps, giving them a withering look.

“Oh, my God,” Pepper says, gravely.

“Stay with me,” Toni says, snapping her fingers. “I need you to relieve the pressure on my myocardial nerve.”

Pepper glares at her. “I don’t know how to do that,” she grits out.

“I will tell you,” Toni says, as kindly as possible. “But I am running out of time right now. I’ve taken the old reactor out, so I need you to reach into the socket as far as your hand can fit and gently move the housing away from my heart. Do you know which direction that is?”

Pepper swallows, thickly. “To the right.”

“To my right,” Toni corrects. “Your left.”

Pepper licks her lips. “To the left.”

“Right.”

“Left,” Pepper says, breathlessly.

Sharon catches Pepper’s uneasy look and takes a step forward. “Maybe I should do this,” she offers.

“Your hands are too big,” Toni dismisses, immediately. “And yes, that goes for you too.” She directs that at James, who scowls.

“No, no, I can do this,” Pepper says, her face setting in resolve.

“Good.” Toni’s smile brightens like daylight.

Pepper takes a deep breath and she begins to reach in. “How deep does this go?”

“You can keep going.”

She’s halfway from wrist to elbow deep in Toni’s chest cavity, her face twisting in discomfort.

“That’s it,” she cajoles. “Deeper, now press.”

Something gives way in her chest.

“Oh, my God, there’s pus!”

Toni sighs. “It’s not pus. It’s an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body,” she corrects.

“It smells,” Pepper snaps at her, her face twisting up in disgust.

“Get over it,” Toni retorts. “The copper wire, the copper wire, you got it?”

Pepper nods, biting her lower lip. “Okay, I got it! I got it!”

“Okay, you got it? Now, don’t let it teach the sides when you’re coming out,” she orders.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Pepper winces.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re doing fine,” Toni soothes. “Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don’t…”

Pepper yanks out the dripping copper wire, a magnet attached to the base, and Toni groans.

“There’s a magnet at the end of it!” Toni barks. “That was it. You just pulled it out.”

“Oh, my God,” Pepper moans.

“Okay,” Toni exhales. “I was not expecting… Don’t put it back in,” she tells her, sharply, when Pepper moves. “Don’t put it back in.”

Pepper takes a deep gulp of air. “Okay, what do I do?” she asks, half-desperate.

Toni leans back, suddenly feverish, streaked with sweat, and she feels as though a knife is twisting in the soft parts of her chest, whatever’s left, at least.

“What is it?” Pepper asks, worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m just going into cardiac arrest,” Toni says, patiently.

“What?” Pepper, Sharon and James both shout.

“You said this was safe!” Pepper hisses.

“Yeah, but you yanked it out like a fucking trout,” Toni retorts.

“Yeah, ‘cause you said it was _safe_!”

“Okay, okay,” Toni says, hurriedly, her neck slick with sweat. “We gotta hurry. Take this, take this.”

She shoves the new reactor in Pepper’s slim hands.

“You have to switch it out real quick,” she explains, her voice thin.

Pepper nods, as if braving herself. “Okay, okay. Toni,” she smooths Toni’s hair out of her face. “Toni, everything’s going to be fine, I’m going to make it all better.”

Toni gives her a fond look. “You’re sweet. Okay, you're gonna attach that to the base plate. Make sure you...”

Pepper shoves the reactor inside the cavity and attaches the thick copper wire to the base. A shock rings through Toni, setting her teeth on edge, and she convulses once, arching off the stretcher.

They watch her, all three of them, with bated breath, and James, his metal hand is clenched so tight that the gears creak.

She gives them a weary, damp smile. “Was that so hard?” she asks.

They all exhale, nervous and relieved.

“That was fun, right?” she says, cheerfully.

“Are you okay?” Pepper asks, in a small voice.

“Yeah, I feel great,” Toni says, honestly.

As much as she can with half her chest cavity pared away, but that’s not something she’ll ever admit to anyone.

“Are you okay?” Toni asks, feeling a sting of regret.

Pepper shakes her head and gulps out a laugh. “Don't ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that ever again,” she warns.

“I, uh, I don’t really have anyone but the three of you,” Toni confesses, awkwardly. “And Rhodey, I guess, and mum, but no one else. No one that matters.”

Sharon tangles their fingers together and squeezes. Toni sends her a grateful smile.

She clears her throat. “Anyway…”

“What do you want to do with this?” Pepper asks, lifting the old reactor.

She stares at it, remembering Yinsen’s blood thickening over her palms, his eyes going numb and blank and says, “destroy it, incinerate it.”

Pepper frowns. “You don’t want to keep it?”

Toni meets her gaze with a deep, measured look of her own. “Pepper, with my history, nostalgia is not a virtue I can give into.”

Pepper softens, her mouth thinning. “Do you have a shirt around here that you can throw on?” she asks, solemnly.

Toni leans down, fishing around the floor before she grasps something cotton and has a fifty-percent chance of being a shirt, and when she gets a proper look at it, it’s most definitely a shirt that she can wear.

“Better?” she asks, when she’s fully clothed.

Sharon gives her a sharp look, like flinders. “I can see your nipples through your shirt.”

Toni snorts and jumps off the stretcher, biting back a wince at how the scarring stretches, the reactor shifts inside her chest and rubs up against her lungs. “Carter, you wish you had tits like mine.”

“They didn’t look so great,” Sharon scoffs.

“James has no complaints, do you?” Toni directs a careful, weighty look at James.

“I’m not answering that,” James declares. “And can we please stop talking about Toni’s breasts?”

“Prude much,” Sharon taunts.

“No, jealous much, and jealous me doesn’t like having a conversation about my soulmate’s breasts,” James snaps.

“That’s because they’re great,” Toni mutters to Pepper, who makes a face like she has to reluctantly agree.

* * *

Toni finishes soldering the boots for her armour, while DUM-E peers over her shoulder, and she slips her feet inside, clunking forwards and backwards over and over again, testing the rigidity and the fit.

“Still having trouble walking, Miss Antonia?” JARVS asks, curiously.

“These aren’t for walking,” Toni muses. “You ready to record the big moment?”

“All sensors ready, miss,” JARVIS agrees.

“We’ll start of easy,” Toni ponders. “Ten percent.”

She’s thrown in the air and crashes into the wall immediately, groaning when her body collides, pain flaring hot and then softening into a dull ache.

“That flight yielded excellent data, miss,” JARVIS says, satisfied.

“Shut up,” Toni mutters. “Try one percent, and we’ll go from there.”

The boots throw her into the air and surprisingly, stabilise, and Toni’s looking over her workshop from ten feet in the air.

She lands with a clangour of metal against timber, her knees bending, and she takes a deep, measured breath, lungs rattling in her chest.

“Yeah,” she exhales, feline and contented. “I can fly.”


	10. x.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "genre: thriller" square (O3) of the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019-2020.

“Manned or unmanned, which is the future of air combat?” Rhodey says, formally, casting dark, flinty eyes on the student pilots gathered around him. “For my money, no drone, no computer will ever trump a pilot’s instincts. His reflexes, his judgement-”

“Why not take it a step further, Lieutenant?” Toni chimes in. “Why not a pilot without a plane?”

Rhodey laughs, the look in his eyes softening. “That I’d like to see. Look who fell out of the sky.” He knocks his hip against hers. He turns to the pilots. “All right, let’s wrap it up.”

She walks over to Rhodey, as the pilots trickle out, chattering and stealing looks at the picture that Toni and Rhode make.

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you for a while,” Rhodey says, honestly.

Toni tilts her head. “Why not?”

Rhodey shrugs. “Figured you’d need a little time.”

Toni scowls absolute murder. “Why does everybody think I need time?” she demands, hotly.

Rhodey sighs, gripping her shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot, babe, thought you should get your head straight.”

Toni reels back, affronted. “I’ve got it straight now, and you don’t know what that means,” she says, coldly. “To not have your head on straight. I am making choices, my own choices, no one else’s, and you have no fucking what it is to not make your own choices, to live at the whim and will of someone else. Rhodey, I care about you a lot, but if you ever say something like that to me again-”

Rhodey winces. “Okay, my bad, poor choice of words,” he acknowledges. “I just thought, you’ve been through a lot, you got made CEO of a company you have no interest or history in, you made a knee-jerk reaction based on what you saw-”

“You think my decision was based on only Afghanistan?” she asks, curiously. “Rhodey, I am the second greatest murderer in this world. If you think torture, severe cardiothoracic surgery and kidnapping in Afghanistan, and not years of abject slavery, rape, abuse, conditioning and forced murder, taught me accountability, I’m concerned about your mental state and not mine.” She sighs. “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I just wanted to let you know that I’m back to work.”

Rhodey frowns, his brow knitting. “Really?” he asks, sceptically.

“I’m onto something big,” Toni says, slowly. “I want you to be a part of it.”

Rhodey exhales, a nervous little laugh. “Fuck, you know, you had me going. Lot of people around here are sure gonna be happy to hear that. What you said at that press conference really threw everyone.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “I meant what I said,” she says, firmly.

Rhodey pinches the bridge of his nose. “No, you don’t. You took a bad hit. It spun you around,” he says, slowly.

“It really didn’t,” Toni says, her eyes pleading and pained.

She didn’t have many friends in this world; she thought she had Rhodey, at the very least.

Rhodey nods to himself. “All right, then. Good seeing you.”

Disappointment curdles her stomach. “Likewise,” she replies, voice thin and taut.

And she walks away from the hangar.

* * *

“I need a shower,” she declares, when she steps into the living room and sees an unhappy James and an equally unhappy Obadiah sitting at their dining table. “Before I deal with any of this.”

She walks off before either of them can say a word. She closes the door to their bedroom, sitting on the edge and letting a long, breathless second heave against her lungs.

She lies back against the mattress, and her elbow knocks against something square and hard. She turns onto her side, squinting, and grasps for the box sitting atop the mattress, in neatly wrapped mauve covering. She sighs and peels it apart, like fruit, nail cutting through sticky tape.

Inside, her old arc reactor sits, mounted in Lucite, glowing faintly, with the words _Proof that Toni Stark has a heart._

Toni grins.

* * *

“The board’s filed an injunction against you,” Obadiah says, when she comes down the stairs.

“What?” she demands.

Obadiah sighs. “They claim you’re unfit to run the company and want to lock you out.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “How can they do they do that?”

“Well, they’re going to try,” Obadiah explains. “We’ll fight them, of course.”

Her lip curls up, a mean little thing. “With the amount of stock we own, I thought we controlled the company,” she says, slowly.

Obadiah shrugs. “I don’t know. Somehow, they managed to pull enough votes together.” He grips her shoulder, and she resists the urge to break his age-worn hand. “Listen, the world doesn’t share your vision, Toni. The more people have to lose, the more frightened they are of new ideas.”

She pours all three of them a glass of wine each, even if it doesn’t do much for James or her.

“Now, listen, I don’t want you to get all in knots,” Obadiah soothes. “You know how many times I protected your father from the wolves?”

Toni doesn’t say anything, her lips frowning-thin, pretending to be meek as a mouse.

“Get back to your lab and work some magic; see if we can change their minds like that, but you let me handle the board,” Obadiah urges. “Oh, and Toni, no more press conferences.”

_Fuck off, Obadiah._

* * *

“Okay, so how do I look?”

Toni cuts a pose in front of her the mirror in her workshop.

“Fetching, miss,” JARVIS replies, in a droll tone.

Toni stretches out, getting the feel of the armour tight around her, ailerons and air brakes popping as she does. It pulses around her, all clean, sharp lines, the greatest shield anyone has ever worn.

“Standby for calibration.”

The gauntlets and boots fire up, and Toni rises up into the air, floating.

Then, she crashes, hitting the floor with an almighty thud.

DUM-E rolls towards her, flashing the funnel of the fire extinguisher at the ready.

“No,” she warns, sternly.

DUM-E pouts.

She sits up, huffing. “We should take this outside,” she decides.

“I strongly caution against that,” JARVIS scolds. “There are terabytes of calculations still needed-”

Toni clambers upright, the armour creaking. “We can do them in-flight.”

“Miss Antonia,” JARVIS begins, chiding. “The suit has not even passed a basic wind-tunnel test.”

“Well, that’s why you’re coming with me,” she retorts.

The HUD comes alive as JARVIS loads himself into the armour’s onboard systems.

She fires up the boots and gauntlets again, and she manages to sustain the hover, floating all over the workshop without managing to hit any of the walls.

“I suggest you allow me to employ Directive Four,” JARVIS says, primly.

Toni frowns. “Never interrupt me when I’m having sex with Yasha?” she queries.

“No, that is Directive Six,” JARVIS says, patiently. “Directive Four: use any and all means to protect your life should you be incapable of doing so.”

“Oh,” Toni’s immediately mollified, a sliver of fondness curling her chest. “Of course, whatever floats you, J.”

She lands on the floor and pads out into the backyard. She shoots herself off into the sky, tumbling around the sky, as she desperately tries to control her flight. She finally tucks her arms and legs in tight, and thrusts her chest out, extending into a straight line, and her flight stabilises.

She soars among the stars, the line of the horizon clear in her vision, swishing along the ribbon of headlights on the main roads of the town. She dives down, quick and fast, screaming her delight, and then climbs right back up, an Icarus made of steel reaching for the heavens.

“Power is at fifteen percent,” JARVIS warns. “I recommend you descend and re-charge, miss.”

Ice hardens around her armour.

“Acknowledge, Miss Antonia.”

Toni doesn’t hear anything, doesn’t see anything but the moon looming closer and closer, her heart pounding in her chest,

“Power at five percent. Threshold breached.”

There’s a loud pop that makes Toni wince, and everything goes dark, Toni startling, drawn out of her reverie.

The HUD flashes: _SYSTEM SHUT DOWN._

“Fuck,” she says, resoundingly. “JARVIS?”

JARVIS doesn’t reply.

The suit becomes heavy, prison, a dead hull, and Toni falls.

She pierces through the cloud, the town below her becoming clearer and clearer.

“Status, status!” she shrieks. “Reboot!”

There’s another pop and a surge that rattles right through her.

“Temporary power restored. Descend immediately,” JARVIS growls in her ear.

She works the boosters and manages to steady her fall.

“J, I think we need to chat about, uh, Directive Four,” she admits grudgingly. “As long as you promise this is never spoken of ever again.”

“May I remind you, the suit feeds off the same power source as your life-support,” JARVIS reminds her, voice cold and sharp. “A zero-drain of RT will likely kill you.”

“You’re a downer,” Toni complains. “But I appreciate the heads-up.”

She descends towards the backyard of her house, landing elegantly on her feet.

“That was quite dangerous, miss,” JARVIS scolds, as she pads back inside, hoping to hope that James doesn’t hear her. “Might I remind you, if the suit loses power, so does your heart.”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t have a seatbelt either,” Toni says, dryly. “A few issues: main transducer felt sluggish at plus forty altitude. Same goes for hull pressurization. I’m thinking icing might be a factor.”

“The suit is not rated for high altitude. You are expending eight percent of power by heating and pressurising,” JARVIS reminds her.

“Maybe if we re-configure using the gold-titanium alloy from the Seraphim Tactical Satellite.” Her mouth twists, an ugly, wrecked thing. “I did recently come into some money,” she mutters. “But it should ensure fuselage integrity to fifty thousand feet, while maintaining power-to-weight ratio.”

“Shall I render, utilising proposed specifications?”

“Wow me,” Toni sighs, watching the monitor display the Mark III prototype being built by JARVIS.

The final version is an all-gold version of the Mark III, and Toni peers, very carefully.

“Hm, bit ostentatious, don’t you think?” she murmurs.

“Perhaps purple would make it a little more subtle?” JARVIS offers, snidely.

Toni grins to herself and leans back, tipping her head. She thinks of the red star on James’ metal arm and feels a sweet rush of pleasure.

“Add a little red, would you?” she says, softly.

The armour should have a little of him, after all; what would she be without him?

“ _Tonight’s Red-Hot Red Carpet is here at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where Stark Industries’ third annual benefit for the Firefighter Family Fund has become the go-to charity gala on L.A.’s high-society calendar. But this great cause is only part of the story_ -”

Toni looks up, clapping her eyes on the television mounted in the corner of the room.

 _“-the woman whose name graces the gold-lettered invitations hasn’t been seen in public since her highly controversial press conference, and rumours abound. Some say Stark is suffering from post-traumatic stress and hasn’t left her bed in weeks_.”

“The work could take till morning to complete, miss,” JARVIS reminds her.

Toni rubs her hand over hair, pulling it out of a ponytail. “I should spend some time with the other half, shouldn’t I?” she says, shyly. “We haven’t spent a lot of time together since I got back,” she says, wistfully.

“I cannot offer an opinion on what is a preferable amount of hours that one should spend with their significant other, miss, but I can offer an objective visual assessment of what appears to be a particular chemical imbalance in Sergeant Barnes’ brain activity since you went missing in Afghanistan,” JARVIS says, simply.

“So, you’re saying he’s depressed because I went missing?” Toni clarifies.

“Yes, and because you continue to act reckless after your homecoming and keep secrets from him.”

“And he’s confided in you about this,” Toni says, slowly, eyes blinking rapidly in surprise, because James, while wholly supportive in her decision to immortalise the memory of a man she’d cared about a great deal, had not taken to an artificial intelligence watching everything they do very easily.

“He has; I share your bewilderment,” JARVIS replies, promptly.

Toni sighs, the sadness slithering in her lungs. “Okay, I’ll come up for air. Hey, you think he’ll want to come with me to that gala?”

* * *

“I hate you,” James declares, tugging at the lapels of his suit.

Toni laughs and sways into his arm. “I know you do, but I promise, I’ll make it up to you when we get home,” she says, fondly.

“I want no less than three blowjobs,” he says, determinedly.

Toni drapes an arm over his broad shoulders, thankful for the height her heels give her, and presses a smacking kiss to his cheek, where his stubble grows.

“If that’s what my baby wants, that’s what my baby gets,” she teases.

James sends her a baleful look that makes her grin.

When they reach the steps outside the concert hall, where the red carpet is rolled out, they are immediately swarmed with paparazzi, whom Toni chooses to believe do not exist. Instead, her eyes are drawn to Obadiah, standing atop the staircase, posing for photos and in the middle of dire conversations with politicians and generals and other kingmakers of a similar breed.

She climbs up the stairs, James on her arm, hiking up the skirts of her dress, and smooths a hand over Obadiah’s shoulder, biting back a grin when he shudders under her touch.

Obadiah stares at her for a moment, thick grey brow furrowing, as he tries to figure out why and how she’s here, at this gala, smiling at him like there’s nothing wrong in the world.

Instead, before he can take too long to think about that, she turns them around, sidling James out of the frame, so the journalists can take pictures of them.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were going to lay low,” Obadiah hisses at her, unbeknownst to anyone.

Toni gives the reporters a gargoyle smile. “Oh, I thought it was time to start showing my face again.”

The muscle in Obadiah’s jaw ticks. “Let’s just take it slow, okay,” he tries to soothe. “I got the board right where we want them.”

“Great,” Toni says, simply. “I’ll see you inside. Lots to talk about.”

She holds a hand out, which James takes, and she leads them into the gala without a second glance at Obadiah.

* * *

“A drink?” Toni says.

“A drink,” James exhales in agreement, practically towing her to the bar, where he orders them tall glasses of Russian vodka that won’t do much for them.

“Ms Stark.”

Toni turns around at the voice, and her gaze thins. “Agent Coulson,” she says, coldly. “Would you like a drink?”

Agent Coulson shakes his head. “I don’t partake when I’m on duty,” he explains.

“Shame,” Toni sighs.

“You haven’t been returning my calls. This is serious, we need to get something on the books, or I’ll have to go official on you.”

“Don’t scold me. I’m not a child,” Toni snaps at him. “I have made it clear, time and time again. I don’t do business with SHIELD, and if I do, I do it through Peggy Carter. No one else. Understood? Now, my godmother has Alzheimer’s and she is currently in a nursing home, being cared for. Considering that she is no longer _working_ at SHIELD, that I don’t do any business with SHIELD.”

“Ms Stark, this is not about you advising us on a potential asset or providing valuable intel with your… experience. You went through a traumatic episode that we need to debrief on. Now, you can continue to dodge us, but-”

“Many years ago, HYDRA soldiers came to our door,” James interjects. “Did you know that, Agent Coulson?”

Agent Coulson straightens, his mouth thinning. “I did not.”

James flashes him the edge of his smile, thumbing the groove in Toni’s pelvic bone.

“Do you know what we did with them?” he asks, his voice smooth, laced with honey.

Agent Coulson clenches his jaw. “No,” he says, tersely.

“Well, we killed them. There were seven of them, then six, after I shot one of them between the eyes. He was saying these really fucked up things about my girl over here, and I’ve never been okay with that. And then, we made quick work with the other six. And then, Toni dragged them all out to the backyard, stuck their corpses on wooden posts for the crows to eat. SHIELD took care of the bodies, of course; could you imagine the neighbourhood watch meetings? But do you get what I’m saying? If Toni doesn’t want to talk to you, she’s not going to fucking talk to you. If you keep pushing, I’m going to put my metal fist so far up your arse that-”

Toni smooths a hand down James’ forearm. “Oh, Yasha, look, it’s Pepper!” she coos, peering at the image Pepper makes in a periwinkle blue dress that looks like it’s made of silk, the way it shimmers in the chandelier light.

James squeezes her hip. “I see her. She looks great.”

Pepper slinks over to them, kissing first Toni and then, James on the cheek. “What’s going on here?”

“SHIELD is waylaying me because they think I need to be debriefed,” Toni sighs.

Pepper looks between her and Agent Coulson. “I would think that would be pretty normal?” she tries. “To get debriefed after something like Afghanistan?”

Toni scowls absolute murder. “Whose side are you on?” she demands.

Pepper rolls her eyes. “I’m not on anyone’s side! I can offer logic to everyone,” she snaps back.

“I am not interested in having this conversation anymore. Yasha, let’s dance.”

Toni holds a hand out, insistently, and James takes it, leading her out onto the dance floor.

“You are so savage,” he teases, pulling her in close, hand low on the small of her back, almost as if he wouldn’t mind groping her arse (if they were anywhere else, she’d push his hand down there herself).

Toni sighs. “You know me, I love my drama,” she says, slyly.

“You can’t dodge them forever,” he reminds her, carefully.

Toni shrugs. “I can try.”

James watches her, without saying anything, his eyes enough.

“Don’t,” she warns. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t like SHIELD, neither do I. They’re nosy and hungry and greedy and they look at us like they want to use us. They are HYDRA with more diplomatic propaganda. That’s all.”

“Peggy was SHIELD, and you trusted her,” James reminds her, his voice too soft.

Toni scowls. “Peggy was different. Peggy tried to help us even though we tried to kill her.”

“I thought we weren’t blaming ourselves for things we did with HYDRA,” James says, easily, his eyes shadowed.

Toni narrows her eyes, leaning closer (she doesn’t miss his eyes latching onto her long, lean throat, and her breasts pushing and swelling at the green silk of her dress). “I hear your voice, but I hear Sam’s words. It’s very confusing,” she says, mockingly.

“Doll,” James says, all charming and sweet. “You should go and see a therapist.”

Toni swells up like an apoplectic frog and abruptly drops her arms from his shoulders. “I’m going to get another drink.”

“It doesn’t even work on us!” he hisses after her, but she flounces away.

“That Polish vodka you have over there,” she tells the bartender, leaning forwards, and this time, when a man stares at the curve of her breasts in her dress, she’s more interested in breaking his nose. “Two glasses.”

When she turns around, a woman is leaning against the bar beside her, with shoulder-length blonde hair and eyes sharp as a naked sword.

 _Christine Everhart_ , a voice startlingly resembling her mother’s whispers in her ear.

“Ms Everhart,” she says, inclining her head in the reporter’s direction.

“Ms Stark,” Christine replies, in a voice that tells Toni that she doesn’t much think of her ( _you don’t even know me_ , Toni thinks, amused; after all, Toni has never had much of a public presence, even if she was the supposed heir to the Stark empire – maybe it doesn’t matter; maybe she doesn’t get an objective assessment from strangers; maybe she can only inherit her father’s sins to add to her own). “I was hoping I could get a reaction from you.”

Toni blinks at her. “I think I have PR people for that,” she says, carefully.

“I was referring to your company’s involvement in this latest atrocity.”

Toni pinches the bridge of her nose. If she ever returned to a life of senseless murder and she could stand the taste of more blood in her mouth, she would be tempted to pick this woman as her first target.

Christine slaps photographs, gleaming in the chandelier light, on top of the bar, face shining with triumph.

“Is this what you call accountability?” she demands. “Maybe you aren’t that different from your father, after all.”

Toni picks up the first photo, curious enough, and the look on her face freezes, turns jagged.

“It’s a town called Gulmira; heard of it?” Christine asks, pointedly.

Toni smothers a swell of rage deep in her chest. “When were these taken?” she asks, her mouth pinched tight.

“Yesterday,” Christine says, scathingly. “Good P.R. move, you tell the world you’re nothing like your father, that you’re righteous and compassionate and you _get_ that maybe guns and bombs don’t change the violent climate of this world. Even I believed you. Even I thought, maybe what Stark Industries needed was a woman, a woman who’d been through the things you’ve been through. I was wrong. _You_ made me wrong.”

Toni trails the edge of a finger over the _Stark Industries_ written in gleaming white lettering over the casing in one of the pictures.

“I didn’t approve this shipment,” she says, emptily.

“Well, your company did,” Christine points out.

“I am not my company,” Toni snaps. “We’re done here. I’ll handle it.”

* * *

“What, what is it?” James asks after her, as she storms out into the cold, night air that makes goosebumps pebble across her bare skin.

“That miserable bastard,” she snarls, her voice a dark, wounded thing. “I want… I want… fuck, I want to peel his eyes out of his skull.”

“Not that I don’t agree and not that I wouldn’t hold him down for you, but what’s going on?” he asks, easily.

She finds him outside, on the steps, chatting to men in smart suits, too oily to be decent people.

“What is happening in Gulmira?” she asks, flatly, pulling him away.

Obadiah blinks down at her. “I don’t…”

“Don’t you fucking dare tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she says, something frightful and black in her chest.

Obadiah sighs, his bulk heaving. “Listen, Toni-”

“What is happening in Gulmira?” she asks, slowly, stressing each syllable.

Obadiah clucks his tongue. “Toni, sweetheart, don’t be so naive-”

“Naïve?” Toni baulks. “No, I was naïve before, when I thought you would listen, when I thought you would do what I say.”

Obadiah scoffs and his big hand lands on her arm, holding her hard enough to bruise and tugging her away before tongues can wag.

James tenses, but doesn’t follow – he has enough faith in her ability to handle Obadiah Stane.

“You’re a child, you’ve never worked in this industry; you have no idea what you’re talking about. You think you can come in here, after all these years, after you played happy families on a fucking farm in New Jersey with your amputee boyfriend, and you think you can just… what, uproot everything, like you have any idea what you’re doing? You’ve got about as much control over things as a child riding in the backseat of your father’s car with a red plastic steering wheel in your hand.”

Toni folds her arms across her chest. “Maybe I’ll just get out of the car,” she warns.

Obadiah snorts, full of scorn, eyes beady like he’s sizing her up like a horse at the market.

He still hasn’t let go of her arm – his grip tightens.

“You’re not even allowed in the car.”

He leans forward, teeth flashing in the dark.

James bristles beside her, and she holds an arm out.

_Not here, not now._

“Who do you think filed the injunction against you?”

Toni just stares. There’s a pressure around her chest, like vises. She lunges, her arm ripping out of his grasp, and he backs away, just in time, his eyes widening, alarmed.

“I am not my father,” she says, very carefully, very coldly. “I’ll put up a much bigger fight.”

Obadiah scowls down at her and backs away, going down the steps, as the reporters follow him, follow her, until she slinks back to James’ side.

“What was that? Did he… why was he holding you like that?” James demands, and all she sees is the razor line of his teeth. “Who the fuck does that… miserable _cunt_ think he is, putting his hands on you like that? I’m going to-”

He starts on his feet, like he’s about to lunge the last couple of steps and smash Obadiah’s head into the glass window of his car just to watch him bleed.

“Don’t,” she warns and plants a hand against his chest, feeling his heart pound underneath her skin and his clothes to an unsteady, angry rhythm. “Not here.”

James growls like an animal, roused and reeling. “He touched you,” he says, coldly. “I’m going to feed him his lungs. What did he say to you?”

“He said what he’s been saying this whole time,” she exhales. “He has no problem going through me to get what he wants.”

* * *

James had gone to bed, after raging enough in their living room, thoroughly frightening the bots, of course, who’d rolled up from the workshop. She’d given him a glass of milk, and he’d fallen asleep quickly.

She’d climbed down to the workshop, asked JARVIS to turn the windows black and poured herself a glass of scotch that did nothing to dull the cold, gaping dread opening up in the pit of her stomach.

Now, she was sitting on the couch that James had insisted she put in there, DUM-E’s claw in her lap, while she turned a screwdriver into the gauntlet covering her arm up until her elbow.

She watches the footage on the television in front of her: _BREAKING NEWS – TRAGEDY IN GULMIRA._

 _“-the ten-mile drive to the outskirts of Gulmira can only be described as a descent into Hell, into a modern-day Heart of Darkness. Simple farmers and herders, from peaceful villages, driven from their homes at the butt of Western rifles and the turrets of modern tanks. Displaced from their lands by Warlords and insurgent groups emboldened by their newfound power, a power fueled by high-tech weapons easily purchased with Poppy money on the black market, and further destabilizing a fragile region which for decades has been a tinderbox of tribal feuding and ethnic hatred_ -”

Toni aims the gauntlet at the lightbulb hanging above her and fires – it shatters and showers her with sparks.

“ _The villagers have taken shelter in whatever crude dwellings they can find -- in the ruins of other razed villages, in the cold barren scrublands, or in the remnants of an old Soviet smelting plant. Our translator relayed to us one human tragedy after another. A seven-year-old boy, thin as a scarecrow, clutching yellowed photographs and holding them out to anyone who would stop, with a child’s simple question: where are my mother and father? A woman, begging for news of her husband, who’d been kidnapped by insurgents, either forced to join their militia, or to be shot without reason-_ ”

Toni adjusts the gauntlet again, which whines, as she raises the power output. She breaks the glass window next and knocks the painting off the wall.

Absentmindedly, she’s grateful for the soundproofing she’d insisted on, considering their already sensitive, enhanced hearing – if she sees James now, his blue eyes like a summer storm, the hard line of his jaw, she might crumple.

“ _With no political will or international pressure, there is little hope for these newly-formed refugees. Refugees who can only wonder one thing: is the world watching?”_

She makes one final adjustment of her repulsor and she fires, this time, at the television screen – it breaks and spills dark glass onto the ground underneath the wall.

She tilts her head, staring down at the mess. Her fingers curl and uncurl around air, creaking.

_No more, no more._

* * *

Toni swoops down in her armour, the desert growing brighter and brighter in her eyes as she dives down, as four men, in dark body armour, aim the barrel of their guns at a child, no older than six, a ragged pup cuddled against his chest, while other men hold back what looks to be the boy’s parents and relatives, their faces streaked with sweat and tears, shaking soundlessly.

She lands on one knee, fist to the ground, and lifts her eyes, bright like the sun in the armour. She aims her repulsor at the ground beneath their feet, and the desert shakes, throwing them some fifty yards back.

The men holding back the boy’s family raise their guns and shoot.

Toni stands there, the armour taking each and every blow, and she raises her fist. Missiles climb out of her wrist and strike, with precision, the men, just as they scream at her and shake and manhandle the civilians in their grip. They fall, and blood pools out into the sand, staining dark and thick.

She spares only a momentary glance at the boy who rushes back, dog in arm, to the tender, sobbing embrace of his mother, and goes for a hunt through the entire village, in her full, terrible glory, deflecting meaningless, withering fire from the terrorists, while laying waste to the men with her fists alone and bursts of her repulsors.

During her hunt through the village, she rounds a hut and finds one man on top of a woman, as she screams and claws at the dirt, trying to get away with him. She sees the dark, savage look in his eyes, like poison, and only sees the Commander, the way he’d looked at her, all wanting and full of greed and rage, the way he’d touched like he wanted to hurt her, like he wanted to own her.

She sees red, red, red.

She lunges forward, and a blade, gleaming red like blood in the sunlight blinding above, juts out of her wrist at her command, and she slices through his throat. He stares up at her, choking on his own blood, and collapses on top of the woman.

The woman screams again, at the blood coating her throat and her nose and her eyes, at his heavy, dead weight on top of her, and scrabbles against the dirt again.

She leans down and grips the corpse by the shoulder, throwing him away bodily, some thirty feet, so the woman can breathe.

The woman pants, like her lungs haven’t started working yet, and her lip is split, presumably from where he struck her, and there’s a cut streaked with dirt near her hairline, under her hijab.

“Hide,” Toni says in Arabic, her voice echoing like a glitching recording. “This might happen again even after I leave. You should hide.”

The woman stares up at her, her brow and eyes damp, pale and careworn.

The gauntlet covering her hand opens up, revealing a small penknife, gleaming chrome in stark contrast to the gold of her armour, and she hands the knife over to the woman she’d just saved.

“Use it,” she advises. “If someone comes for you again, don’t hesitate. His eyes, his throat, his groin, the fleshy part of his stomach, and stab until he stops.”

The woman stares at the knife in the flat of her palm and then back at her; finally, she nods.

Toni walks off. 

She rounds another hut and a man mounts an RPG on his shoulder, firing at her. She takes the blow in the shoulder and skids back in a cloud of dust. She snarls at him, lunging forward, and picks him up by the scruff of his armour, leaning close so she can press her repulsor against his face.

The soldier shudders from head to foot, and she can smell urine, even through her armour.

“Geneva Convention!” he shouts at her, desperately. “Article Three! Geneva Convention!”

“Do you think I care?” she asks, her voice sharp like flinders.

She fires the repulsor, blinding white, and he screams as the heat burns the flesh right off his face. He lands in a puddle of urine, clutching at his bloody face – she can even see bone through the mess.

She leans to finish it, when she’s jarred by a sniper’s bullet, and she looks around, peering at the thermal silhouette showing in her HUD of a man kneeling on a nearby rooftop. Toni fires her repulsor, but she’s too far away to do much, and she’s hit again.

 _Now you’re just pissing me off_ , she thinks with venom.

There’s a jeep lying on the dirt beside her and she kneels down, arm curling around the tyre and wrenching it off the vehicle with a sharp, metallic noise. She considers the weight of it and then, she throws it right at the sniper – it hits him, square in the gut, and sends him flying off the rooftop and onto the village ground.

When she goes after the rest, the villagers start to climb out of their hiding places, just when a tank shell blasts the building right next to where Toni’s standing. The force of the explosion makes Toni skid a little into the dirt. The tank rolls towards her, smashing the village’s hits.

The villagers cry out in disbelief.

Toni faces off against the tank, just as its turret zeroes in on him.

“It is one of your father’s designs, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS murmurs to her.

Sure enough, Toni can see the _Stark Industries_ written in white, gleaming font on the side of the tank.

Something frightful and black curls in her chest, and she bares her teeth under her helm.

“Do we have its schematics?” she asks, carefully.

“Yes, miss,” JARVIS says, promptly, and the HUD immediately switches to the overlay of the tank.

Her eyes scrutinise it carefully, until she finds the weak spot.

A panel opens up on her forearm and out climbs a mini-missile pod, which she fires at the gear between the front tires. The pod strikes true, and for a second, it looks as if nothing will happen, and then, then, the tank bursts into flame and Toni has to dodge the rain of seething metal, sharp and hot as it slices through the desert ground.

The dirt crunches behind her, and she swings around, without missing beat, the repulsors glowing hot, and _oh._

It’s a girl, with dark skin like Toni’s, dark eyes like Toni’s, streaked with dirt, her hair in tangles that resemble braids, and there’s a line of blood near her hairline. She holds a flower out to her, her eyes big and round as the moon when it hangs low and swollen in the sky.

The girl smiles, showing yellow, straight teeth, and the muscle that remains of Toni’s heart flips in her chest and grates against the arc reactor.

It aches, dull and stinging like a burn that will never leave her, both the sight of the little girl and the pain of the arc reactor that is now more of a steadfast, loyal companion than the weight of the knife at her hip, or James’ hand in hers.

She takes the flower from the girl, fingers curling loose around the stem, and tucks it into her gauntlet, a bright burst of colour against the sharp crimson of her armour.

She smooths a hand over the girls’ hair, which renders a toothy beam from her, and waves, throwing herself back into the air.

 _No, no babies, I can never have babies_ , she reminds herself, almost like a good belt across the face, even if she thinks, if she had a girl, she might have looked like the girl in the desert.

The battlefield below her smoulders, and Toni can smell the death, rotted and fetid, even through her armour.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, miss?”

“Plot a course for home.”


	11. xi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: angry sex that James initiates, which is very Harlequin-esque but Toni reciprocates happily.

An incoming call flashes up on Toni’s HUD.

It’s Rhodey, his handsome face, his wide, toothy smile.

She hesitates and then, her shoulders slump. “Put it through, JARVIS.” She pauses. “Yeah?”

“Toni, it’s Rhodey,” comes Rhodey’s crackling voice. “What the hell’s that noise?”

“Oh, James bought a convertible. We’re driving with the top down. So, it’s not the best time-”

“I need a quick ID. What do you know about un-manned combat robotics, with air-ground capabilities?”

“Never heard of anything like that,” she replies, light as the air. “Why?”

“Because I think I’m staring at one right now, and it’s about get blown to Kingdom Come,” Rhodey says, firmly.

 _Fuck_.

“Uh, kingdom come?” she queries.

Toni’s HUD starts flashing a bright, alarming red, large letters of PROXIMITY WARNING all over the screen and the imprint of Raptors inching close to her.

“This is my exit,” she says, quickly, ending the call. “Gotta go.”

Toni rolls out of view, through the clouds, and makes a sharp turn, almost treacherously, but the F-22s curve expertly onto her tail. She shouts in fury and disbelief as she tries to outrun the pursuing the jets.

One of the F-22s fires a Sidewinder missile, and Toni goes full tilt as the missile closes in fast. She can see the track of the missile on her HUD, a red dot moving across the centre of her face.

“Incoming Sidewinder in five... four...three...two...”

“Engage counter measures,” Toni grunts.

A hatch opens in her armour and chaff releases. The missile hits the cloud of chaff, and it detonates around nothing, and Toni shoots from the mist of fire. The Raptors veer, and Toni dives, rolling into dizzying evasive manoeuvres, as if she born for this, born to fly like this, soaring like a dragon through the clouds.

The F-22s stayed glued to her tail, though.

“Miss,” JARVIS says, sternly. “May I remind you that the suit can handle these manoeuvres? You cannot.”

The F-22s now spray heavy cannon-fire into her path, tracer rounds streaking past Toni and exploding right in her face. The shrapnel ricochets off the armour with a sharp, metallic sound, and carve right through the first layer of the titanium alloy.

“JARVIS, air brakes!” she calls out, her voice tremulous and high.

JARVIS deploys the brakes and Toni instantly slams down to a quarter-speed, forcing the jets to blow right past her. She flies as close to the vipers as possible and then clings onto the belly of one of them.

“Call Rhodey,” she says, her breath hitching in her chest, her arc reactor digging uncomfortably against the walls of her lungs.

“This is not good for you, miss,” JARVIS advises lowly. “Your body is not meant-”

“My body is meant to sustain a great many things,” she cuts him off, squarely. “Call Rhodey.”

JARVIS sighs, long-sufferingly. “As you wish, miss.”

“Rhodey, I had JARVIS run a check,” she says, quickly, once the call is put through. “I might have some info on that UAV. A piece of gear like that might exist. Might definitely exist-”

“Wouldn’t happen to be red and gold, would it?” Rhodey asks, his voice low and halting.

The jet that she’s clinging to starts to shake, and she holds on for dear life.

_Give me a fucking break._

“Son of a bitch,” Rhodey says, awed. “Toni!”

She hangs up.

The jet continues to shake, trying to dislodge her, and then, it rolls, the world around Toni becoming a centrifugal blur. She grits her teeth, as her head swims, but her gauntlets dig into the jet’s belly. Warning lights flash across her HUD: _28% POWER REMAINING._

“Miss, two minutes and there won’t be sufficient power to get home,” JARVIS warns.

Finally, Toni is jarred loose from the get, tumbling, and she hits the other viper’s tailfin, shearing it off with the blow from her armour. The jet beneath her careens out of control, spiralling crazily. The pilot ejects out of the crippled jet, falling down to the grey ground beneath.

After a moment, Toni just watches – the chute doesn’t open.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mutters and dives down.

“Power critical, set course for home immediately,” JARVIS snaps at her.

“Yeah, well, sometimes, I do have a heart,” Toni grunts and urges the armour to go faster.

She reaches the pilot and stills, face to face with this boy who is no older than the one who had died when her Afghanistan convoy had been set upon by men from the Ten Rings. His eyes are wide with fear, resignation, the whole host of emotions that come when a person realises they’re on the edge of death, just about to tip over.

_Not if I have anything to say about it._

She reaches down and yanks the chute mechanism free. The parachute snaps open, and the pilot is jerked up into the air, becoming a little pinprick of light in the blue sky. Toni’s repulsors sputter, and she flounders a little in the air, finally banking sharply, coming dangerously close to the ground.

The second viper barrel-rolls right onto her tail.

A missile fires straight for her.

“Evasive manoeuvres, _now_!” she snaps, and chaff releases.

It’s not enough, because the world bleeds out in fire.

* * *

She lands in the garden behind her house and trudges back inside, bruised and aching, already healing. The house is dark when she pulls back the backyard screen, slipping inside, and she hopes against hope that James is still sleep, as she creeps down to her workshop.

He’s not.

He’s standing there, in the middle of her workshop, when the lights come on.

She almost shoots him; the repulsors dim immediately.

“What… what are you doing here?” she asks, lifting the helm of the armour from her face.

Her hair spills out, damp with sweat and clinging uncomfortably to the back of her neck.

“I was sleeping,” he explains, his voice cold, his eyes cold, everything about him cold, like he’s shut himself off from everything, including her. “And then I got a call. You wanna know who it was, _malina moya_?”

Toni closes her eyes, shame prickling on the back of her neck. “I can explain,” she offers.

“Yeah, I really hope so, doll,” James eases out. “Why don’t you start with that hunk of metal you’re wearing?”

Toni looks down at herself, the armour that is scratched and banged up and clawed.

Something kicks a little in her chest, as she raises her eyes to meet his. “I made armour like this to get away from that cave,” she says, haltingly, with practiced, graceful ease.

Something in James’ face contorts, like disbelief and desperation. “What, what are you talking about?”

“I got out of the cave, away from the Ten Rings, by making armour like this. It wasn’t all this sophisticated. It was a lot of sheet metal after I stripped Stark Industries’ weapons clean, some basic weaponry, but enough to get past them. Yinsen, the man who was imprisoned with me, the man who put this in my chest-” she taps on the glass covering her arc reactor with the edge of her nail. “He died, distracting them, while I got the armour ready. And then, I blew the entire camp up into the air.”

James folds his arms across his chest. “And you started making the armour again when you got back,” he guesses.

Toni nods, starting to strip off the armour, piece by piece.

“And you went to fucking Gulmira today and fought a bunch of terrorists in a fucking village,” he says, anger beating through each word.

Toni startles, making an embarrassing little noise of surprise. “How did you…?”

“Rhodey called,” James says, his voice clipped. “To tell me about your spontaneous travel plans. I had to tell him that I had no fucking idea what my soulmate was doing, because she’s been lying to me, right to my face, for _months_. You want to explain that, baby doll?”

Toni’s hands are hot. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she says, quietly.

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty fucking worried right about now, Toni,” James barks at her like a building crashing. “And it’s a pretty fucking weak explanation.”

“They had my weapons,” she protests. “in Gulmira, and Stane, he looked at me and said, _so fucking what._ Was I supposed to let that stand?”

“You were supposed to _tell_ me,” he roars back at her, fists clenched. “If you’d told me what the fuck you were doing, I would’ve come with you. I would’ve helped you. You wouldn’t have had to fly into a war zone with no backup, because I would’ve been there. _I would’ve helped you_.”

Toni looks away, her jaw clenched hard. “I didn’t want you a part of this,” she says, carefully. “We got out for a reason.”

James looks like he might wring her by the throat. “That means fuck all when you’re jumping into an active war zone and taking on terrorists in experimental armour. I don’t want _out_ , if it means watching you go to die. You said, _you said_ , I would save you all the times, and you would save me all the times. Well, this was _all the times_ , and you didn’t let me save you,” he grits out, aching, like steel on stone.

“I don’t need you to save me, I can take care of myself,” she argues, because she is not weak; she is a mechanic now, in some sombre, lazy, little town, and she is no longer the Engineer, but that does not make her weak.

James’ hand comes down hard on her workstation table, cracking the linoleum in two. “That’s not the fucking point,” he snarls like an animal, roused and reeling. “I know you can take care of yourself; I have always known, but that doesn’t mean you have to. You don’t _have_ to do everything on your own, Toni. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m not your knight, I’m not your saviour, I’m not your hero, _I know that_ , but I’m your partner. I’m supposed to fight with you, not stand on the sidelines, waiting for you to come home like I’m an idiot.” He points a finger at her, rudely. “You could’ve told me about this. I would’ve come with you. I would’ve picked up my gun and I would’ve come with you and I would’ve killed anyone and everyone you told me to kill, because I love you and your fight is my fucking fight too. But you chose to lie to me instead. You decided that I wasn’t on your side, I wasn’t your partner, and you fucking lied to me for months.”

Toni shakes her head, half-mad and desperate. “That’s not… that’s not true.”

James goes on as if he can’t even hear her. “You hid down here in the workshop, while you plotted out your secrets and let me sleep in our bed wondering if you were sick or if you weren’t getting over what happened to you in Afghanistan, if you weren’t sleeping, if you were having nightmares. I was worrying myself sick over you, and you were lying to me. Do you have any idea how stupid I felt when Rhodey called me tonight, telling me what idiotic shit you’d been up to?”

Anger curls within her. “So, that’s what this is about? How stupid you felt? So, all that shit about me lying to you, it’s not that you were concerned about my safety, but because I made you out to be like a fool?”

James growls low in his throat. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to you insult me because I may have wounded your pride a little-”

“My _pride_? My pride? That’s what you think I’m concerned about here? I thought you might have died, you stupid bitch!”

“You _just_ said that you hated how stupid you felt when Rhodey called you up. That wasn’t about me, Yasha, that wasn’t about what I’d done; it was because I’d had the temerity to keep something from you-”

“Yeah, okay, yeah, fine, it was; it _was_. We’re supposed to be a team, we’re supposed to do this shit together; it’s supposed to be you and me against this miserable fucking world, and you just proved you’d rather go at it alone, because you don’t need anyone, do you, Antonia? No, you’re strong and brave and independent. Why the fuck would you need anyone? Least of all me.”

“Oh, God,” she groans. “I can’t take you feeling sorry for yourself. If that’s what this fight is going to be about, can it wait until after I’ve had a shower and maybe had a little nap?”

“Oh, I didn’t realise illegally entering an active war zone would be physically exhausting. Plus, I was so sure you could do everything on your own. Are you sure you need that nap?” James asks, snidely.

“God, you sound like a fucking child throwing a tantrum,” Toni says, scathingly, so full of scorn that it turns James purple.

And then, he snaps and lunges for her, shoving her up against her broken workstation and crushing his mouth against hers.

“I’ll show you a fucking child, you selfish bitch,” he grunts and bends her over the table, yanking her leggings down to the middle of her thighs.

“Selfish?” Toni laughs, a harsh sound like grinding stone. “I’m sorry, which one of us expects me to sit here and fucking bake you cookies so you can feel like you can salvage something you lost to HYDRA-”

She wriggles, when he hooks two fingers in her underwear, pulling them down as well, and he finds her wet between her legs when he checks.

“You’re liking this,” he mutters against the shell of her ear. “I can’t be disappointing you too much, _malina moya_.”

“Fuck off,” she snarls, and he shoves two fingers up inside her, stretching her where she throbs, insistently.

She grinds back against the intrusion, growing sopping wet, waiting in breathless anticipation, until she feels the blunt press of his cock against her, crowding her against the table. The thin, worn cotton of his sweatpants rubs against the backs of her thighs, and she realises, with a flare of arousal, that he hadn’t even bothered to take his pants off, just pulled out his cock, ready to fuck her.

He tangles a hand in her hair and pulls until she’s hissing from the sting, her nipples hard under her shirt.

“Not so chatty now, are you?” he taunts.

“Either fuck me, or let me go upstairs and take care of myself, since that’s all you’re good for,” she retorts, her voice poison-sweet.

James snarls like a raging animal and he eases inside her, stroking a hand up her flank (even if he’s furious at her, even if he’s using fucking to punish her and her to punish him, he would never be rough with her in a way she didn’t want). She gasps, clutching at the table, her hand snapping off a good palm size of the table, which hits the floor.

James’ hand around her hipbone tightens and he fucks into her, right until the base, and she groans, rough and hard.

“Hurry up,” she hisses like a cat, leaning back and smacking his thigh.

He growls and seizes up her hand, pinning it against the table. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’ll come when I want you to come.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I denying you something?” James snaps at her. “Am I making you feel foolish and waiting for something that’s never gonna come? Am I making decisions without consulting you, making you feel like your opinion isn’t valuable?”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

James growls and rams into her hard, pounding into her like he’s on a mission, taking her apart until she only knows the stretch and burn dragging air out of her lungs, the grip of his hand in her hair and the resulting sting.

“Do you have any fucking idea what you did?” he asks her, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“I know you’re gonna keep bitching about it,” she retorts, sickly-sweet.

“God, do you ever fucking shut up-”

James bears her down, kicks her legs apart, hands gripping her hips so tight that there’s sure to be a mottled canvas of bruises all across her hips, all purples and blues and yellows that will start healing the second he leaves her body, livid welts across her skin that she might touch the next morning and smile at.

There’s a breathless ache in her chest, as she parts for him like a sweet, ripe peach, making a soft, desperate noise with every thrust inside her, her arse tilted up for the best angle.

For a brief moment, he stills inside her, and she thrashes feebly against his grip.

“Why are you stopping?” she demands.

“You put yourself in danger,” he says, his voice like a knife edge. “You could’ve died out there.”

“But I didn’t,” she insists, clenching desperately around his cock. “I knew exactly what I was doing the entire time. I wasn’t going to die, and I took every one of them down at the same time. This was a good thing, Yasha. This was such a good thing.”

His hand cracks down against her arse, and she shrieks, a long, high sound.

“You still don’t fucking get it,” he mutters, voice strained, and fucks her hard and thorough, as she lies there, pinned down to the table by the weight of his hips, and takes it.

She tries to thrust her hips back against his cock, but he doesn’t let her, his grip indomitable, like she needs to know that any pleasure she gets from this is at his hands and his hands alone – she comes when he wants her to come and not a moment sooner.

She’s stretched full and taut around him, and every inch of his cock inside her, her cunt gripping him like a vice, drags relentlessly against the little patch of flesh inside her that makes heat curl in her belly. His hand snakes underneath her body, and his thumb swipes over her clit, making her seize up around him, throbbing, and sob out something unintelligible.

He grins at that – she can hear it as he speaks.

It fills her with such rage that she can’t stop herself. “If you don’t fuck me good and proper, I will find someone to take care of that for me,” she threatens easily.

James’ hand tightens in her hair, and he yanks her up, so that his chest hair scratches at the curve of her spine, as he rams back in, bodily rocking with the force of the thrust.

His teeth find her neck, the tendon there, and bites down, and she scrabbles against the table.

“You don’t get to leave me,” he snarls, one hand snaking around and groping at her breast, almost painfully, thumb swiping over the dark brown of her nipple in a wilful, possessive gesture, tightening under the brush of his finger.

“Oh?” she rasps.

Her hand snakes down to swipe over her clit, and he bats it away.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he tells her, gruffly. “You’re mine, you’re _mine_ ,” he barks like a building crashing. “You’re only going to come when I say you can.”

“That’ll take forever,” she complains.

James ignores her. “You don’t get to leave me,” he grunts in her ear, hips stuttering and snapping forward, the noise making her drench around him. “You don’t get to throw yourself into a line of fire and you don’t get to die, you don’t get to leave me alone in this world.”

She doesn’t reply.

“Did you hear me?” he demands, giving her a good, solid shake. “You don’t get to leave me, you don’t, _you don’t_.”

Much to her horror, she feels the back of her neck grow damp. She reaches behind her, curling a hand around the nape of his neck, and pulls him in close. He leans into, nudging his nose against her throat, where her pulse throbs fast and wild.

“I won’t,” she whispers. “I won’t.”

“You can’t, you can’t leave me,” he pants, sobbing, breathless, thrusting harder, gripping her hair tighter. “You’re all, you’re all I have left, please, _Antonia moya_ , _malina moya_ , please, don’t go, don’t leave me, don’t do this without me.”

“I won’t, I won’t, _I won’t_ ,” she gasps, wrecked, and comes just like that, sudden and sharp and rattling.

He thrusts once, then twice, and comes in his own bright and furious rush, spilling inside her and leaving her damp between her legs, when he pulls out of her. She drags up her underwear and leggings, grimacing at the sensation. When she turns around, cracking her neck, James is standing there, sweatpants to his waist, broad arms folded across his bare chest.

“What?” she demands.

“What the fuck is going on with you?” James retorts, a knife’s edge to his tone.

Toni scowls absolute murder. “Why are you being such a judgmental dick about this?”

“Because you aren’t _saying_ anything,” James snaps at her. “Because you’ve keeping secrets ever since you got back from Afghanistan, and yeah, I’m fucking sick of waiting upstairs, waiting for you to come back to bed or, God forbid, _talk to me_ , and you never fucking do, Toni. That’s my problem, that’s why I’m being, in your own words, such a judgemental dick about this!”

“I don’t have to tell you _everything,_ Yasha!”

“Do you even listen to yourself? You sound like a bitch.”

“A bitch?” Toni repeats, scathingly, offended. “At least I want our life to be something more than servicing morons who think self-defence is a new bachelorette party idea.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask for this life,” James throws back at her. “It was _your_ godmother who gave us the Stepford Suburbia backstory. I had no say in it. I’m just making the best out of this.”

“Don’t bring Peggy into this, and I didn’t see you complaining when she got us a fucking house and let us live in it, free of charge!”

“Why are you changing the subject?” James shouts at her. “This isn’t about our lives here, this is about you lying to me, over and over again, since you got back, keeping me in the dark, and then, you going out there, you going to fucking Afghanistan and you getting into a grudge match with a bunch of terrorists with experimental weaponry. I mean, did you think I’d never find out? Were you hoping I wouldn’t? Do you realise how fucked up that is? You could’ve _died_ , don’t you fucking get that? You could’ve died out there, you could’ve died, and I wouldn’t have known what the fuck was going on, because you don’t tell me anything _anymore_!”

“I didn’t set out to lie to you!” she protests. “I didn’t do any of this to hurt you, Yasha. I just… I didn’t, I didn’t want you involved because I didn’t want you to get hurt by any of this, because this is my fight, this is my fucking _fight_ , Yasha. I needed to do this on my own.”

“What happened to telling each other everything, even all the ugly and awful things? Did that change for you so quickly?”

Toni watches as James’ eyes widen at some realisation he has, one she cannot see, because it’s hidden away behind his eyes, some awful thought that turns his face pallid and disbelieving.

“Has this changed?” he asks, his voice small, troubled. “Have we changed? Did something happen? Did I _do_ something to make you not trust me, not tell me any of this, what’s going on with you, what you’re feeling? Did you think-did you think I wouldn’t let you?”

Toni shakes her head. “Of course not, of _course_ not, and there was no _letting_ me. I would’ve done it without you. I would’ve gone to Gulmira no matter what. _I had to_.”

James makes a noise full of scorn, flipping emotion just like that. “You didn’t _have_ to do anything. You didn’t _have_ to do any of this. You were reckless and you were smug,” he says, scathingly.

Toni’s chest throbs. “Wow, tell me what you really think.”

“Those civilians could’ve been hurt,” James tells her, coldly. “If you weren’t thinking about you and only you, what you can do, how you can help, you, you and more you, you might’ve realised that. You were selfish, and people could’ve gotten hurt because you wanted to play hero.”

Something black and frightful curls in her chest, and the rage floods up hot, like bile in her throat, sour.

“I saved people, I did what was right,” she says, fiercely, her hands shaking. “There was a woman, one of the men from the Ten Rings was raping her when I got there. I saved her. There was a boy, he was about to get shot by one of them. I saved him. Fuck you, I saved people. I did what no brave American soldier could do because they don’t want to do it. People are dying there. They’re dying over there because of my weapons.”

“They’re not your weapons!” James protests. “You had nothing to do with them. You didn’t make them, you didn’t supply them. Toni, this isn’t your fault!”

“They’re as good as mine, they’re as fucking good as,” she snarls right back. “That is my legacy. _This_ is my legacy. This will always be my legacy. Death, rot and ruin, and then death and more fucking death.” She shakes her head. “You, _you_ , you’re Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes at least. You had a mother, a father, sisters, friends that you love, you _remembered_! You slipped back into that life like you never left it. You’re a war hero.” She laughs, a harsh, strained thing. “They write about you in history books. They talk about you like you deserve a damn parade every fucking day. Nothing you did as the Winter Soldier removes that awe, that fame, that fucking veneration. But me?” She shakes her head, all that is hard and ugly staring at him. “I’m the sad little girl who got turned into a killer because I happened to have the wrong name on my wrist.”

James flinches, but she doesn’t see it, she doesn’t let it sway her.

“To everyone outside, I’m the girl who was kidnapped and trafficked into being some monster’s sex slave. I have _nothing_ beyond that identity. So, don’t you dare come here and judge me for it. You have no idea…” she trails off, dragging a hand over her hair. “You have _no_ idea what it’s like, being the sad little girl awkward on the outskirts of a life that isn’t hers. Hiding behind everyone because you don’t feel like a real person.”

“So, what we have here, what we’ve been doing for the past thirteen fucking years, _that’s_ not a real life; you don’t feel like a real person?” James demands, hot, liquid anger slicing through his expression. “What the fuck am I, Toni? _What the fuck am I_? Just some doll you can play with until you feel like a real fucking person?”

“This is about _you_!” she shouts back. “This isn’t! This is about _me_ , Yasha, about _me_ , and you’re still not fucking getting it. I was drowning, and now, I feel alive, Yasha,” she laughs, almost helplessly. “I feel _alive_. I love you, I love you like I love nothing else in this world, and that is the only real thing to me, the only real part of my existence that there is, _but_ it wasn’t enough. It’s not you, it’s _not_ , it’s me and only me. I have parents don’t know, can’t love, a life that I feel like I’m playing at because it belongs to someone else, a dead girl. A life I had no right to but took because I was selfish and stupid and because I thought that, maybe, just _maybe_ , I was worth more than a cunt and a good pair of killing hands. But this armour, this reactor, I can _do_ something here. I can do something real and honest that makes me feel like this life isn’t a lie and I can do it _myself_.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, drags a hand over her face, and lets the air settle in her lungs somewhat.

“This is _mine_ ,” she says, firmly, a death knell to her voice. “This is not yours. this is not ours. This is _mine_.”

She leaves him there in the workshop and makes her way upstairs to the bedroom.

* * *

Toni startles awake when James slips inside the bedroom, smelling of scotch, as he crawls into the bed beside her and wraps his arms around her, settling under her camisole so that he can splay a big, warm palm over the flat of her belly.

“You could’ve died,” James says, roughly. “You could’ve _died_ , and no one would’ve known. You could’ve died today, and they wouldn’t have found out until they rescued that metal coffin from somewhere to peel it away so they could see your blue, swollen corpse inside. You could’ve died today, and I would’ve been _sleeping_ the whole time.” His hands around her tighten. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” He touches her hips, where she hisses at the sting from the livid marks left on her skin by his fingers. “I was a fucking ogre, wasn’t I?” he asks, self-deprecatingly.

Toni makes a noise full of scorn. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to,” she snaps, reaching behind him to grip a thigh, to pull it over her hip.

“I love you,” he says, quietly, uncertain and childlike, against the nape of her neck. “I have never loved anything the way I love you.”

Toni sighs. “I know, I love you too.”

“Do you understand…”

She feels him swallow thickly.

“Do you understand why I got so angry?”

Toni tenses in preparation of a fight.

“I’m not…” James sighs. “I’m not trying to start it again. I’m just… fuck, Toni, you scared the shit of me, do you know that?”

“I’m sorry,” she offers.

“No,” James says, heavily. “No, you’re not.”

Toni bites her lip. “You’re right,” she agrees. “I’m not, but I do love you and I am sorry that I scared you. I didn’t want to…”

_I didn’t want to worry you, I didn’t want you to die with me, I didn’t want you to have this part of me._

The latter seemed cruel to say.

“You really think it was easy for me to slip into my old life?” James asks, curiously.

Toni shrugs, her heart beating rapidly against the notches in her spine. “We don’t really talk about your life before…” she waves off, dismissively. “You had a family to return to-”

“A family I never see,” James says, solemn and strained. “I only have a sister left, and I… she… I don’t want to see her.”

Toni twists so she can see his eyes, his beautiful eyes. “Why?” she asks.

James’ mouth twists into something sad. “Because I’m not her brother, Antonia,” he rasps. “I’m not Bucky Barnes anymore. Bucky Barnes died when he fell off a train in the alps. I have his face and his memories, but I’m different, I’m a different man. I don’t want to force her to come to terms with it. So, yes, I had a life, a family, memories to come home to when we left HYDRA, but that doesn’t mean I went back to them. I didn’t. I went back to you _every time_ , nothing else, no one else.”

Warmth and regret curls into the spaces between each of her ribs, and she reaches for him, smoothing a thumb over his cheekbone.

“I don’t have anything but you,” he says, honestly. “I know you don’t believe me when I say it, but nothing I had before I left, I can go back to. That is not me, that is not my life, that is not the life I want. I just want you. There’s nothing better than you, do you get it?”

“Yeah,” Toni whispers and tangles her fingers with his. “Yeah, me too. Me too, Yasha. I… I’m sorry, I should have told you about everything, about the armour and how I escaped the Ten Rings, and what I was doing in the workshop. Yasha… I, I don’t know, I’ve just been so tired, so exhausted with it all. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

James hushes her, brings her in close, hand smoothing down the dip in her spine, so she can nudge her nose against the hollow of his throat.

“I should have told you, I’m so sorry. I just… I know we got out, and I wanted you safe, I wanted you to be happy, and I had to do this, Yasha. I have to do this, I _have_ to do this, I can’t be responsible for more death in this world. I have to be more, I have to do more,” she lets out an ugly, wracked sob. “Please don’t hate me for it.”

James squeezes him into an embrace. “I could never hate you, I could never hate you for anything in this world,” he says, honestly. His smile is sad, though. “Do you have to die for this, though?”

“Dying would not be the best outcome out of all of this,” Toni says, vaguely. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to leave you alone in this world. But I have to do this, Yasha. They’re using weapons that have my name on them to kill people, to kill _children_ , and all I can think about is that I am contributing to more and more graves, more and more corpses, and my hands, my _hands_ all over them-”

James kisses her, slow and lingering. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she says, roughly. “It’s really fucking not.”

“Okay, it’s not,” James says, gently. “Then, I’ll come with you.”

Toni lifts his eyes. “What?”

“You need backup,” James says, firmly. “I hate the idea of you going out there on your own, I hate the idea of you being on the other end of a gun or a bomb and me not being there to protect you, and yes-” he cuts her off when he sees her mouth open. “-yes, I know that you don’t need anyone to protect you; yes, I know that you’re an independent woman who don’t need no man-”

“Okay, what’s really freaking me out is that you’ve been researching meme culture on the Internet.”

“- _but_ ,” James says, sternly. “I would feel a lot better if you had someone out there to guard your six, while you’re… trying to change the world, one bomb at a time.”

Toni bites her lip, resting her chin on the curve of his pectoral. “Are you sure?” she asks, in a small voice, a child’s voice.

James smooths a hand over her dark hair. “Yeah, I’m sure. I want to do this with you, I want to protect you, I want to share in whatever dumb idea you have to feel better because you’re the person I am spending the rest of my life with.”

Toni huffs and turns her head. “I resent the idea that I ever have dumb ideas,” she says, smoothly. “Because I don’t. I am a very intelligent person.”

James laughs. “The jury’s still out on that one.”

He pokes a bruise left by her armour, grins at her wince and dodges her fist when it comes for him.


	12. xii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: serious racism and misogyny and general awfulness from Obadiah Stane, non-consensual touching, sexual assault, Obadiah (yeah, that scene), explicit descriptions of slow cardiac arrest.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Rhodey barks at her like a building crashing, when she opens the front door and he sidles inside.

“Oh, hi, hello, how are you feeling, you know, after my friends trying to broil you like a fucking pig,” Toni says, sarcastically.

“You deserved it,” Rhodey accuses, pointing at her.

Toni rolls her eyes and shuts the door.

“You can’t do that,” he says, immediately, his voice sharp like flinders. “You can’t go into my active fucking warzone and use experimental tech on some stupid revenge trip, okay. You _can’t_ do that. Do you have any idea what the fuck I had to do to keep the damn Air Force off your heels?”

“Military exercises?” Toni deadpans.

Rhodey scowls. “Shut up.”

Toni grins, just a little, which makes him scowl at her even harder.

Rhodey shakes his head, drags his hand over his face, like if he does that enough, stresses enough, she might stop being the person she is.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands.

Toni shrugs. “Weapons that have my name on them are being used to kill innocent people,” she says, patiently, voice laden with steel. “I’m not letting that happen anymore.”

Rhodey breathes, deep and measured. “You can’t go around and blow up stuff every time you see something you don’t like on TV.”

Toni stares at him, plainly. “Yes, I can,” she says, in that strange, blunt way of hers.

“You’re not with HYDRA anymore,” Rhodey urges. “You don’t get to do what I want.”

She smiles a pearl-cut smile. “It is because I’m not with HYDRA anymore that I can do what I want, Rhodey.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “You could’ve died, you know,” he says, quietly.

“You know what, I’ve already been read the riot act from Yasha; I don’t need to hear it from you too,” she says, flatly.

He grits his teeth. “Next time, you know, they might just blow you to pieces,” he says, almost a threat, almost a challenge.

“Next time, I might not be so nice,” she murmurs, and watches half in pleasure, half in regret as a shadow casts deep over his handsome face.

Rhodey, eyes huge, wounded, his mouth pinched tight, paces back and forth. “So, Barnes knows what you’re doing; he’s okay with it?” he asks, cold and unyielding.

Toni tucks her hands behind her back. “He’s okay with it; I also don’t need his permission,” she points out.

Rhodey’s shoulders slump forward. “For fuck’s sake, Toni,” he says, in a pale, pinched way. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with all of this, huh?”

Toni shrugs. “That is totally up to you. I’ve made my choice, _this_ is it, and I am not going to be responsible for more death in this world. I am going to fight for the people who can’t fight for themselves, for that little girl in Gulmira who gave me a flower that I still have – she might have been me, if I’d not been taken by HYDRA – for that woman I saved today from being raped, for that little boy I saved from being shot like a dog by those terrorists. I am not apologising for it, do you understand? I saved people; they deserved to be saved-”

“It’s not that simple,” Rhodey cuts her off.

“I don’t care, I don’t care anymore,” she says, firmly.

“It’s not for you to decide,” he tries to tell her, gently.

Toni’s pulse is a heavy thud. “Who said it wasn’t?” she asks, lightly.

* * *

She’s back in the cave that night, when she sleeps.

She stares at the walls, dark as soot, gleaming, hiding blood, and her stomach curdles like sour milk.

“Antonia.”

She turns her head, and Yinsen is sitting beside her, face solemn, strained and yet, so kind. He’s always kind, when she closes her eyes and sees him on the backs of her eyelids.

He hands her a bowl full of something pale and sloppy, the best he can do with minimal utensils, minimal food, and a small, blazing fire.

“Are you on the right path?”

The breath drags out of her lungs, leaves her stunted, clawing. “I don’t know,” she confesses.

Yinsen smiles at her, all soft and taffy-sweet. He pats her on the hand, like she’d imagined some faceless stranger that wasn’t her father might have – Howard Stark loved her, died for her, grieved her even while she lived and stood in front of her, but he’d have never touched her so kindly.

“What does your heart tell you, Antonia?” he asks, and light slices through her.

* * *

Sharon is unimpressed, when she finds Toni in the workshop the next day.

“I’m guessing Yasha told you,” she sighs.

“God, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Sharon demands, folding her arms over her chest.

Toni grits her teeth and looks away.

“Seriously, do you have a death wish or something?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she murmurs.

“Why don’t you try and explain?” Sharon challenges.

Toni rounds on her. “You know, I never explained to you what happened to me. You were a child when I came to Peggy.”

“I remember,” Sharon says, stoically.

“Do you? Do you _actually_ remember? We came to your house, and Yasha had a bullet wound in his stomach. The man we called commander, the man who thought he _owned_ us, owned _me_ , he shot Yasha during our escape.” Toni shakes her head. “The first time I killed someone, I was six. They kept us in cells, under the base, Yasha and me. Sometimes, he was put in cryo, but I was always in the cell. There was a little cot, I remember. I used to hide things under my pillow, screwdrivers, nuts, bolts, a little knife, whatever I could swipe from my lessons. I was testing my skills. One night, men broke in. All I saw was their teeth, their eyes, and I reacted. They grabbed me by the arm, and I climbed him like a tree, opened his throat with a rusted screwdriver.”

She watches Sharon’s face, watches the blood leave her skin, leaving her pale and shifting.

“That was my first and not my last. That is _all_ my life was until in 1995, do you know what that feels like?” Toni demands. “All I have done is put bodies in the ground, I’ve murdered men at dinner, surrounded by his children. I’ve killed _children_. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted to be a different person. So, yeah, I went to an Afghan village and I decided to fight a grudge match with a bunch of terrorists. I’m not fucking apologising for it.”

Sharon looks away. “Aunt Peggy, she helped you?” she asks, her voice thin.

Toni deflates just like that. “Of course, she did,” she says, voice strained. “I wouldn’t even… I wouldn’t even have this house without her. She should’ve, she should’ve put us in jail, but she didn’t.”

Sharon nods to herself, jaw clenched. Finally, she huffs out a laugh. “I used to think you were so cool.”

Toni lifts her eyes, curiously.

Sharon shrugs. “I mean, I grew up with Peggy Carter as my aunt and guardian. It’s not like I was a stranger to strong female role models. You were different, though.”

“I was strange,” Toni points out, dryly.

Sharon grins, her mouth curling. “You were,” she agrees. “But you were also strong, funny, you were vulnerable in a lot of ways, but you didn’t let that… you weren’t going to let that ruin you. I admired that. I used to think… I want to be like that, I want to be like _her_. She’s so beautiful, she’s so put together, she could be anyone and everyone, honestly. You were like the moon, only dark and shifting.”

Toni looks away, her mouth, her throat dry. “You’ve been reading too much poetry.”

“You’re wrong,” Sharon murmurs. “Toni, you’ve got to know, after all these years, you’re like my sister. I don’t _have_ family, I have you and I have Aunt Peggy and I have Pepper. That’s it, that’s all. I don’t want to lose you, Toni. I love you.”

Toni swallows, thickly, and ducks her head, staring at her lap.

“So, what do you need?”

Toni startles, her look going sharp. “What?”

Sharon’s look is deep, measured. “What do you need?” she asks, slowly, deliberately.

Toni falters, just for a moment, before she straightens her shoulders and grapples for a USB on the table. She hands it over to Sharon.

“This device will hack into Stark Industries mainframe,” she explains, her voice low and halting. “I need you to go over there and retrieve all shipping manifests.”

Sharon stares down at the USB in her palm and curls her fingers around it. “Pepper?”

There’s something shining and afraid in her eyes.

Toni softens. “I don’t want any of this to touch her, I won’t let it,” she soothes. “Which is why I’m asking you.”

Sharon huffs. “Bullshit, you wouldn’t have asked me shit if I hadn’t pushed you for it,” she mutters.

Toni raises an eyebrow. “I’d take it if I were you,” she says, slyly.

Sharon rolls her eyes. “You’re sure about this, right?” she asks, carefully. “You’re sure you want to do this, get back in the game _this way_.”

“He tried to save me, you know, my dad,” Toni explains, a mirthless, gutting smile curving her mouth. “When the bomb went off, he threw himself on top of me, and he died for it. If there is someone in his company, the company he thought the world of, if someone other than the Ten Rings is the reason he’s dead, I owe that to him and to everyone who’s died because of weapons with my name on them to find who’s doing this, who’s selling these weapons under the table, behind the backs of all the people who pour their blood, sweat and tears into them. I have to be…” she sighs. “I have to be better, Sharon, I have to _do_ better.”

Sharon reaches out, their fingers tangling together, and squeezes, until Toni’s filled with a lingering warmth.

She pauses.

“Pepper can never know about this,” Sharon says, uneasily.

Toni nods. “Of course.”

“What about Bucky? Does he know what you’re doing?”

Toni snorts. “He sort of found out after I almost got killed by the Air Force in Middle Eastern airspace.”

“And?”

“He’s not happy.”

“So,” Sharon fists the USB. “He won’t be happy about this?”

Toni cracks a smile. “Oh, he’ll be furious.”

* * *

That night, waiting for Sharon to come home with the USB, Toni sends James away for dinner with Sam, who is only too glad to oblige, sensing tension between the marked couple.

Toni waits; she waits and waits and waits for Sharon to come, to call her, to tell her anything.

But nothing happens.

She tries for the third time, the ring going straight to voicemail.

She blows out a breath between her teeth, and it beeps. “Sharon, it’s me; call me when you get this. I’m worried,” she says, tersely, hangs up the phone.

Something shifts behind her, and she rounds, pistol in hand, the barrel of which is pointing at Obadiah’s smug face, which is only tinged with confusion at how quickly she’d sensed him coming.

“You shouldn’t have left your door open,” he says and clicks the device in his hand.

There’s a shrill sound, like bone white static, in her ears, making the blood pound in her ears, and then, she’s still, still as a tombstone, going ramrod straight. She tries to move her fingers, her arms, and the pistol falls out of her hands, hitting the ground with a thunder.

She’s about to fall, head-first, onto the ground, but Obadiah grabs her just in time, big, meaty palm settling around her waist and dragging her over to the sofa like she’s nothing more than a sack of potatoes.

She tries to open her mouth – it doesn’t move.

She tries to clench her first – it doesn’t move.

She tries to blink, to kick, to claw his eyes out, and nothing works.

Her body is just meat and now, it’s just dead meat.

Obadiah looms over her, big and strong – his meat is good meat, the meat that men use to get what they want in this world, the meat they use to shove around women and take and take and take until they’ve taken all they wanted, hollowed out whatever they want and left scraps for the rest of them.

He hushes her, a fat thumb brushes something wet from underneath her eyes – she is _not_ crying, she is not, she is _not_.

He brushes her hair out of her eyes, something that her father might have done if he were a different mind, and her stomach curdles like sour milk.

Her father is dead, after all, and she’d never wished for such gentleness from him.

“Easy, now,” he murmurs. “You should try to breathe.”

His hand finds the hem of her shirt, drags it up achingly slow, as if drawing it out, her discomfort, her humiliation, her violation. She’s not wearing a bra, so his eyes drag hot over the curve of her breasts, the nipples puckering in the cold air.

Obadiah sighs, a big, meaty finger tracing the curve and pinching quickly at her nipple.

“You know, it’s a shame it had to end like this, sweetheart,” he says, kindly, like a grandfather might, his hand still on her breast. “We might have had some fun, you and I, otherwise. Your tits are quite nice, stupendous, even. Howard and Maria sure did well. I thought… there might be scarring or something, after that whole trafficking thing, but they clearly maintained you well.” He chuckles. “I mean, for good reason, I suppose, I doubt men would pay to get inside your hot little cunt if you were damaged, huh?”

He gives the other breast a good grope as well.

Toni promises to kick his cock into his throat for that alone.

“You can’t mess with progress, Toni,” he chides her. “It’s an insult to the Gods. You created the greatest weapon ever, the greatest weapon that anyone’s ever made, but you think that means it _belongs_ to you?” He leans in, his eyes hungry, pale, haunted. “It belongs to the world.”

Toni watches in involuntary silence as he opens up a briefcase beside her, removing something sharp and cylindrical that a dentist might use in a child’s worst nightmare, and he places the flat end of the device against the arc reactor between her breasts.

With a vicious wrench of his wrist, the arc reactor comes away from her chest and into his hand, and she grunts, a hurt little noise that something is breaking off inside her body, leaving her empty, aching, twisted.

“Your heart will be the seed of the next generation of weapons,” he says, smoothly, his voice a soft purr, and all she hears is _you will be the mother to a new generation of soldiers_. “They’ll help us steer the world back in the _right_ direction, put the balance of power back in our hands. The right _hands_.”

He twists his hand, peering at the light that makes his face look pale and wraithlike. It’s so close that she could reach for it, her fingers stretching out, seizing it, putting it back in her body, but she can’t, _she can’t move her fucking hands._

It’s so close that she wants to sob, to wretch, to burn the world to the ground if it would just give her that damnable arc reactor back, the closest thing she has to a heart now.

“Did you think I’d just let it happen?” he asks, curiously, sitting beside her on the couch, like they’re sitting at a café and about to have some coffee together. “Did you think I’d let some jumped-up little cunt, who had no idea about _any fucking thing_ , who’d never worked a fucking day in her life, who thought she was fucking entitled to something because she happened to share some DNA with the dead CEO, because of what Howard was stupid enough to write on some fucking piece of paper, stroll through, ruin all the plans I made, because she was too much of a fucking soft touch, a fucking moron, to just sit back and let the men handle things? You didn’t know your place, you were too _dumb_ to know it, and so, I had to teach it to you.”

He peers at her, eyes dark, greedy, feral, smile toothy, and it reminds of her that cold table, tied down, naked, skin crawling, while HYDRA medics prodded between her legs, the commander by her feet, gripping her ankle, staring where she’s spread open for him to take his fill, as he promises her, _you will give us a great gift, girl, you will help remake the world in our image, you will be mother to a whole, new generation of soldiers._

She’d have killed every single child they put in her, scrubbed her womb and body clean of their poison, just as she’d killed the commander, just as she would kill Obadiah.

“I had plans, you know,” he sighs, lamenting.

Toni has the sudden, vicious image of her bearing him down to the ground, using a knife to cut open his chest, hands drenching in his insides, peel away his ribcage, and fist his heart in her hands, rip it from his fat, old, oily body as he had done so easily with hers, and take a bite, so he knows where he stands, what she is, what she can and would do.

It’s dizzying, the bloodlust, her eyes, the things she sees in them, carved in _red, red, red_.

The pain hits her then, when the bloodlust is at its highest, wraps around her chest like a vice, and squeezes and squeezes.

This isn’t how she thought she’d die, she realises, absentmindedly. This isn’t what she thought would be the end of her.

Obadiah Stane is some miserable fucking white-privileged corporate scab, the sort that launders money and paws at unwilling secretaries and goes home to heave atop their wife, who drinks way too much wine, pops way too many pills, with the inch worms they can penises.

He is no great supervillain, the sort that Greek epics are written about.

It’s shameful to die like this.

“Do you know how I got involved with your fucked-up family?” Obadiah asks, curiously, sighing a heaving breath, like his fat makes it hard to breathe.

 _A pig for slaughter_ , she thinks.

“I was a butter and egg man, that’s what they called them back then,” he chuckles. “I was the suave charmer. Oh, yeah, your father was good with the women, could get them on their back with their legs up in the air faster than nothing, but he sucked with the men. He wasn’t good with them. They didn’t appreciate his skin colour, being a fucking camel jockey and all, they didn’t like his religion, they didn’t like how he talked, they didn’t like much about him. But he was good, he was smart, he was going to change the world, and he needed someone like me to get him through the doors. And so I agreed, I _wanted_ to be involved, I wanted to be on the side of the something new, the things that were going to change the world. I wanted to be part of a fucking revolution, but there was an understanding. There was a fucking understanding,” he says, his voice barking like a building crashing. “One day, one fucking day, it was going to be my turn. I wasn’t just the money guy, the fucking _procurer_. It was going to be my day, and Howard was going to give it to me, because I’d earned it, I’d fucking earned it with everything I’d put up with, with him and his fucking drinking and falling over on his fucking face, and Maria with her fucking depression and pills, and fucking Carter,” he spits Toni’s godmother’s name like it’s made of poison. “That fucking raging cunt, with all of her looks, like I was something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe, something she wouldn’t touch with fucking Styrofoam.”

The words twist a knife in Toni’s gut, and if she had control of her hands, if she could move them, she might have reached out and wrung his throat for that alone.

“God, she always hated me,” he says, full of disgust, full of disdain, like he doesn’t know what is worse, Peggy being a _she_ or Peggy hating him. “She always thought I was out for some angle, for some precious thing that belonged to her precious fucking Howard. I mean, I know she married that crippled loser, D’Sousa, but I was always so sure that she was spreading her legs for Howard on the side as well. I mean, why wouldn’t you, huh? D’Sousa was making policeman money, and yeah, sure, Carter had SHIELD and all, but Howard was a fucking millionaire. He kept Maria in fucking diamonds, and of course, Carter wanted a piece of that. I bet half the reason why she stuck around as long as she did, because let’s face it, Howard wasn’t the nicest man around. Why else would she put up with his shit if she wasn’t fucking him? God knows back in the day, she was a looker, even with all that Feminazi shit,” he grunts. “Great tits, great ass, long legs, and a mouth you used to fantasise was wrapped around your cock if it would only shut her the fuck up, you know?”

The pain stretches from throat to cunt now, burning, searing, like her skin’s being pared off, sliver by sliver.

Obadiah sighs. “I put up with so much from your people,” he says, disgusted. “So much fucking dysfunction from you people, but it was okay, it was supposed to be okay, because one day, one day, Howard would come to his fucking senses and realise that he was a shit CEO, shit husband, shit father, shit everything, and only half-way decent in a fucking workshop, and he would step aside. He would step aside for _me_ , because I was done letting some fucking _camel jockey jew_ get everything I should be getting. It was going to be my time in the sun. And then, well, Howard never fucking stepped aside, did he? The years passed, and he didn’t fucking step aside. Held onto it all, the power, the money with an iron fist, like he was fucking owed it or something. Wouldn’t let go an inch. Not like he was good at it either, he was just so fucking entitled. So, I decided, if he wouldn’t let go on his own, I’d make him let go.”

God, dying is slow, she never realised.

“It was going to be easy too. Your father was a miserable drunk half the time, stumbling in at all hours of the place. Killing him didn’t come to mind first, don’t worry,” he chortles, squeezing her shoulder with his big, meaty hand.

She doesn’t feel it, not like he wants her to.

“I just thought I’d ruin him, you know? He was already a miserable fucking drunk, getting him caught with a hooker or two sucking his cock, while there was coke smeared across his nose, that would’ve done him in for sure. Maria would have sent him out on his ass. Sad in a way, because of all of Howard’s faults, he sure loved your mum a lot, wouldn’t have dreamed of touching another woman who wasn’t her. But all’s fair in love and war, wouldn’t you say?”

She doesn’t know why he’s asking, when she can’t move, when she can’t say anything.

“But it would’ve been really easy. It’s not like there weren’t rumours, you know. Hookers, secretaries, a lawyer here, a paternity suit there. Catching him in a compromising position, well, that was going to be fucking easy, wasn’t it? The bastard didn’t even know half the shit he did when he was drunk. He used to stay at my place, you know, because Maria didn’t like it when he drank. She hated it, so he used to stay at my place, and I used to cover for him, tell her when she called that he was just busy, we were getting some financial reports done, you know the drill. Although, I suppose you don’t,” he chuckles. “Not much of commerce education where you were, huh?”

She stares up at his weasel-smile. _No, but I learned how to pull all of your teeth out of your jaw without killing you._

“But it was going to be relatively painless, physically, I mean. Howard would get caught with his pants down, some blonde bimbo with big tits with her mouth around his cock, and Maria would divorce him, take him from half of what he had, because they didn’t have a pre-nup or anything. I asked him too, ‘cause what if she left him, what if she screwed the gardener and got pregnant with his bastard, what if she went at him with a steak knife, and he said, _Obie, I love this girl, I don’t want a life without this girl_. He was a fucking moron, but Maria was smart, quick as a whip, so I sort of understood? But Maria would divorce him for being a cheating prick, and take half his staff, and the board would lose confidence with him or decide he wasn’t the sort of guy they wanted representing the company, which is a shame because it’s his name on the door, but they’d get rid of me, and they’d ask me to take over. That was going to be it, my great rise, and you people, your fucking family, they ruined everything,” he spits like poison.

The pain rips across her chest.

Strange, that it takes so long for her to die.

“Honestly, I don’t know when I changed my mind, maybe it was after Carter kept giving me those looks of fucking disdain every Thanksgiving, maybe it was when you showed up again, batted your eyelashes at the old man, and suddenly, he was saying shit like _I want to put Toni in the will, Obie, I want to make sure she’s taken care of after I go_.” He shakes his head in disgust. “He didn’t even know you,” he complains. “You were just some stranger, and you showed up, and they were so pathetic, so fucking grief-stricken that they just opened up everything to you. Give me a fucking break.”

_I should be saying that to you._

“And so, I changed my mind. I waited, waited for a good opportunity. He’d been getting soft in his old age, your father, and he started saying shit to me about wanting to stop making weapons, wanting to go a different direction, wanting to have a legacy that wasn’t all just blood and death, and I thought, _what a fucking pussy_ ,” Stane sighs. “That was all you, you know. You came back, and he turned fucking soft. God, you might have been the worst thing for him.”

Toni remembers Howard bleeding, choking out _no_ , as he crawled on top of her and saved her from a bomb blast that might have killed her, at the expense of his own life.

_He was good to me._

“And then came Afghanistan, perfect opportunity. Old man goes to demonstrate and sell weapons to generals, convoy gets attacked, no survivors. Brilliant,” Obadiah declares. “I mean, the Ten Rings were easy enough to convince. Shoved a couple cases of Stark weapons at them and they were bending over to do what I wanted. I didn’t factor you in, though. I didn’t think Howard would be fucking sentimental enough to drag his estranged kid with him to a fucking warzone. He was supposed to die, and then, Maria, god, beautiful, kind Maria, the girl that Howard never fucking deserved, she’d realise that she needed someone to take care of her, that she needed a man in her life that could actually get shit done, and not some weak little shit like Howard. She’d look over and see _me_ , she’d see that I’d always been there, that I could treat her the way she deserved to be treated, that girls like her, you know, the fiery ones, the ones that need a firm hand, the ones that need to be brought out of that mindset, the one where they’re still living in a fucking crack den. I would’ve taken care of her, I would’ve been good to her. I mean, it’s not like she had much else, right? No kids but for you, and you’re not some great prize either. God, she hadn’t even done that properly. Without a husband, what was she? She needed a man, a civilised life. I could’ve made her _something_ , something worthwhile in our world. She could’ve been on my arm, a fine, upstanding, proper-looking gentleman, and well, if I got at her shares, that would’ve been icing on the cake.”

He sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

“I thought it would be simple, _it was supposed to be fucking simple_ , he’d get himself killed, they’d read out his will, and it’d say that I got all of his shares in SI. It was my fucking _right_!”

His face contorts in such bitter, seething hatred that Toni feels a sliver of fear curl in her gut, an instinctual reaction, one that promises violence done to her, born out of experience.

“I was owed those shares; I was owed that _fucking_ company. All those years I spent scraping and swindling and charming and making sure your dear old dad didn’t drink himself and the company to death. I put my life, my sweat, my blood, everything I had into Stark Industries, and the old man, he shafts me. He fucking shafted me by giving everything he had to some fucking basket case who spent most of her life spreading her legs in some fucking hovel for strange, rich men. Yeah,” he snorts. “That’s exactly what SI needed, some hippie bitch coming around and declaring, _we’re not going to make weapons anymore because people die and that’s bad_.”

He turns to her, all solemn, and pats her on the head like she’s nothing more than just a dog.

“That’s you, you’re the hippie bitch,” he explains, kindly, like she hadn’t understood. “A part of me was glad when you went missing from that hospital,” he tells her, almost like they’re having a conversation over a nice, cold, frothy beer. “I mean, yeah, baby and all, you’re supposed to be sad, and I _was_ , don’t get me wrong. I mean, Howard’s been my friend for decades, and when I found out… I mean, it’s fucked up. Babies just don’t go missing, not in our fucking country, where we have some fucking class and civilisation-”

_Oh, yeah, because this is the pinnacle of class and civilisation, you molesting your friend’s daughter and murdering her on her couch in her home, leaving her corpse to be found by her soulmate._

“And God, Howard was a fucking mess. So was Maria, of course. They both were. And Jarvis, fucking Jarvis, man, I hated him, but he loved the shit out of you, this silent, pink thing that just laid back in that incubator and stared at everyone. I mean, how do you love a thing that just watches and shits?” he scoffs, full of scorn. “But for months, they were just fucking incompetent. Howard just drank, Maria was just depressed, and I thought… it’ll be done now, they’ll never get over this, and it’ll my turn. I can push him out, and it’ll be my turn. They almost divorced, after all of that. He drank so much, and so did she, but she liked the pills more than she did the wine. And they fought so much; she blamed him. I mean, if he was involved with SHIELD, what was the fucking point, if he couldn’t save their kid? I mean, I saw it coming. Howard was always piss-poor about that; he was never good at protecting what he called his. He was fucking sullen about that for years. God, I should have just put antifreeze in his fucking beer. I might’ve saved myself a lot of fucking trouble. But no, you came back, and somehow, miraculously, Howard and Maria were cured.”

_No, no, they weren’t._

“I thought you were a hoax,” he explains, casually. “I thought you were just some chick down on her luck playing at the billionaire’s daughter to get your hands on some cash. I mean, yeah, sure, you looked like them, but plastic surgery works wonders nowadays, and these sorts of scams are popular. You know about that whole Anastasia thing, right? I told Howard, I told him, _be careful, you know, you don’t know who she is, what she is, I don’t want her to take you for a ride_. And he just laughed and told me that he knew you were his kid, that it was some fucking miraculous, mystical thing that he knew, he just fucking knew. God, he was such a moron. A part of me actually hoped you’d take him for everything he had. But we couldn’t deny the DNA test, and we certainly couldn’t deny that war hero doppelganger you’d shacked up with either. And then, he got it into his head to give you everything,” he shakes his head in disgust.

He looks down at her, like he’s hoping for some sympathy from her.

“I mean, who does that?” he asks, incredulously. “Some stranger, some girl who looks like him, some fucking mechanic from Podunk nowhere, and he gives her everything. I mean, do you have any qualifications? Other than being some fucking wino suburban bitch getting fucked by a geriatric. I suppose if you’re going to go for old men, I’d go for Bucky fucking Barnes. Although,” he reaches out and squeezes her knee, thumb dragging back and forth and curdling her stomach in one full motion. “I was always open if you were into that sort of thing. Oh,” his eyes widen. “And killing, I suppose.”

She wonders if she looks surprised, because he laughs.

“Yeah, I knew. Howard told me,” he explains. “About HYDRA, about the Winter Soldier, about the Engineer,” he mocks liberally. “Seriously, of all the things to call you, they call you the Engineer. I guess they got what they wanted out of you, so it worked in the end. Howard told me you had around two-hundred-and-fifty confirmed kills.” He whistles. “That’s one hell of a record. I bet Carter was shitting her pants when she found out. And the Winter Soldier, well, who was expecting that from decorated war hero, James Barnes, huh?” He shakes his head. “I needed a glass of bourbon or five when Howard told me everything. If only you were still with them when I came to the decision of offing him; that would have been the perfect irony.”

 _The perfect irony_ , she agrees.

“You’re used to being a bought and paid whore,” he goes on. “Maybe I should’ve gone for you instead of Maria. You’re still young and you’ve got those tight, nice, perky tits, those long legs. I’m sure your cunt is great. I mean, Maria’s had dozens of miscarriages and a kid. She’s got to be loose, right? She never breastfed though, but age and gravity make those things sink.”

For that alone, she has to kill him.

“Oh, well,” he sighs and stands.


	13. xiii.

The blackness crawls in on all sides, and the pain rips across his chest, throat closing up, clenching, throbbing and burning.

Her arms and legs tingle, and she feels her organs, her heart, her lungs, dying, rotting, screaming in protest.

She thinks of Yasha, _her_ Yasha, in his tactical armour, with that war paint around his pale eyes, the first time they made love in a bare apartment in Brooklyn in 1993, as she perches in his lap and takes him inside her for the first time, as he fills her up until she’s stretched and bursting at the seams, until the world shatters around her.

She thinks of his kind eyes, his smile, his teeth, his hands, the way he calls her _malina moya_ , all the times he called her _Antonia_ , the way his hands held her close enough, hard enough to bruise, how his heart beats only for her, her name on his wrist, the way he loves her, _he loves me, he loves only me, he loves me._

Toni wishes they’d never left that bed.

They should never have left that bed.

Fuck HYDRA, fuck SHIELD, fuck Howard, fuck them all, it should have only been them.

“By the time you die, my prototype will be operational,” he tells her, looming over her, and his smile is diseased, like a gargoyle, with sharp teeth like swords. “It’s not as conservative as yours.”

He wraps the arc reactor in linen. The audio-paralytic switches off with a sharp click that cuts through the air, and Toni falls off the bed, fingers twisting in the carpet, as she gasps for air, shudders, chokes, eyes and chest burning.

“The sad thing is...” Obadiah says, sympathetically, looking away. “We’re both the good guys. I am sorry it had to end this way.”

He switches off the lights in the lounge on his way out.

There’s a hole in her chest, she has no heart, and she’s dying.

He’s left her there to die, a cruel, impossible thing that she almost hadn’t expected from anyone outside of HYDRA, but here it is, here Obadiah Stane is, the monster that ends it for her.

There’s a shade in the edge of her vision, like death – it’s coming for her.

“Miss Antonia?”

_Oh, JARVIS, I’d forgotten about him._

“Miss Antonia?” JARVIS demands, voice strained and brittle. “I am detecting concerning vital signs. Should I call for assistance?”

She opens her mouth to say something, to say _anything, CALL YASHA_ , and only a wheeze comes out.

“Miss Antonia? I am anxious about your inability to respond to me. The cameras installed shows you on the floor, unable to move. I will ring Sergeant Barnes.”

Toni grapples for the carpet, pushes herself forward, her vision turning black at the edges, crawling in on all sides, a singular, undeniable colour pressing in.

Does it matter in the end, if JARVIS calls James?

She estimates another ten minutes before the cardiac arrest finishes, her pulse will slow until it’s non-existent, the blood flow to her brain will stop, she will lose unconscious and stop breathing, and then, she’ll be dead.

Even if James runs, he won’t reach her before she dies.

She’s alone here, there is no one coming to get her or stop this from happening, she has _always_ been alone, and there is no saving herself this time.

She presses forward, nonetheless.

 _Not like this, not like this_ , she thinks and sees red, black, angry spots behind her eyes.

_I can’t die like this, it’s not fair._

She sees the Commander, his gleaming dress shoes, standing in the corner of the lounge, as scrabbles steadily, slowly.

He sneers down at her, that handsome, hard-cut face that she sees every night in her dreams; of course, she would see him in death as well.

 _Stubborn bitch_ , he says to her in disgust, watching her writhe.

Her lungs are on fire, a steel band wrapped around her chest, and her heart thumps desperately, erratically, whatever’s left of it now that the arc reactor’s gone.

But there’s another arc reactor in her workshop, the one that Pepper had taken out of her chest while Sharon and James watched.

_Oh, God, Sharon, Sharon, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry._

She is all dried up of tears, she has been since she was a little girl, and so she goes on.

“Miss Antonia? Miss Antonia?” JARVIS shouts.

Toni opens her mouth.

The words are too big, too heavy, too dry to leave her tongue.

So, nothing comes out.

Nothing but a scream, a scream like she’s an animal in a trap, an agonising howl.

She grabs onto the leg of the coffee table and pulls herself to her feet.

For a long, terrible second, she tips her head back, staring at the ceiling, and takes a slow, steadying breath.

“Miss Antonia?” JARVIS asks, worriedly, afraid.

“I am not dying today, JARVIS,” she replies, her voice thin and high. “Don’t worry.”

She lurches forward, her throat heavy and aching, stumbling through the door and grappling for the frame to keep her on her feet. The stairs loom in front of her and she steps forward with no purchase, her foot slipping out from underneath her. She falls the stairs, the world turning on its end, and she hits the last step with a rough, pained grunt, a sharp spike pain ripping across her shoulder, her ribs, her thigh. She smacks her hand against the ground and pushes herself up onto her hands and knees, and then onto her feet, arm wrapped around her chest.

She reaches out, and before she can even tap in the code, the door swings open with a slick little click.

“I have you, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS rumbles.

She thinks of the first JARVIS, how he used to come around for tea and bring her sandwiches with vintage cheddar and the iced tea that she liked, the way he caught her thrashing in the thick of a nightmare and woke her up only to say, _I have you, Miss Antonia, you aren’t alone anymore._

The grief is almost worse than the cardiac arrest in that moment.

She stumbles forward, across the threshold, trips over the disjoint in the uneven flooring, and she hits the ground again, this time onto her front, her knees smacking hard against the linoleum floor.

She stares ahead, and the fucking arc reactor sits on her workstation, in that glass casing that Pepper had found for it, complete with stand that says _Proof that Toni Stark has a Heart._

God, Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, the Universe, keep Pepper safe, keep her happy and content and kind, because she might be the only reason why Toni survives this night, because of her and her sentimentality.

But each step, each tile across the floor, each fucking centimetre that Toni has to scale seems like a mile, a league, and God, wouldn’t it be easier to die here, on her workshop floor?

Hasn’t she lived enough, done enough, suffered enough?

Shouldn’t she be allowed to give up _some time_? Is there a point where she stops fighting, stops suffering, stops having to brave?

James, the image of him, with his dark hair and handsome, hard-cut face looms into view, burns at the back of her eyes, and a part of him resents him for that, resents him for how much she loves him, how much that means she can’t lie back and let herself turn into a corpse.

Her nails scrape against where the table solders onto the ground, and she reaches up, tendons straining, fingers trying to claw around the case, the arc reactor, the only hope she has for living past the next two minutes.

Her hand hovers in the air, fingers flexing, and settles around nothing.

She sobs, a heavy, vicious thing that makes her chest throb all over again.

She turns onto her back and sobs again, dry and heaving.

Death will take her, now, death will swallow her whole.

She will finally be done.

What a fucking joke.

And then, the case looms into view, the glass gleaming in the low light of the workshop, DUM-E’s claw grasping it gentle enough that the metal doesn’t break the glass.

The claw tilts, and DUM-E makes an inquiring chirp, innocent.

“Good boy,” Toni says, voice a harsh, grating rasp, taking it from him.

And then, she smashes it against the floor.

Her hand comes back bloody, but victorious, with the arc reactor in her clutch, and she rolls up her shirt, her arm like stone, solid and unyielding and too heavy to even move.

It slides in easy, like a lover might inside her, and the click anchors the air tight in her chest.

She takes a deep breath; her lungs expand, go full and stretch right at the edges, like they should, and there’s no pain, no ache, no dull stinging, no heaviness, no lingering shade of death at the edge of her vision.

The thready, faltering beat of her heart quickens, becomes strong, fierce; the tight knot in her belly loosens, softens, becomes soft.

She grips the floor, sensation returning, and shoves herself onto her hands and knees.

She takes another breath.

It doesn’t hurt.

This is victory, this is vindication.

She clambers to her feet, she stretches, lets her limbs roll and takes another breath.

The arc reactor is heavy, hurts of its own accord, pulls at the angry, red skin around it, squishes slick against her lungs, against heart muscle, but she’s alive, she’s breathing.

He hasn’t killed her.

She isn’t dead.

Fuck him, she’s not dead.

“Toni! Antonia!”

She looks up.

James is in the doorway, hair hanging around his face, the shade of a beard dark against his face, his eyes big and round and over-bright.

She leans back, hand gripping the edge of her workstation, and exhales.

“Hi,” she says, voice rumbling in her chest.

James rushes for her, grasps her shoulders in his big hands and looks her over, surveys her like he’s peeling her apart, peeling her to see her bones, the imaginary wounds that he believes scour her body.

“I’m fine,” she reassures.

“There was blood,” he tells her, roughly, wrecked.

Toni looks down at her hands, and her nails are caked with it, red, almost black now that it’s dried, but it’s blood.

“I was trying…” she sighs. “I couldn’t stand up,” she confesses, mouth twisting at having to admit the weakness. “So, I had to crawl.”

James exhales. “Fuck,” he says.

“Yeah, fuck,” Toni says, dryly.

“Are you alright? Are you sure? We should… we should get you to a hospital-”

Toni shrugs him off, not unkindly, and covers his cheek with her hand. “I’m fine. I’m _fine_. He didn’t kill me. He can’t kill me,” she says, fiercely. “But now, I think I have to kill him.”

James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Toni, Toni, you almost _died_ , you need to rest, recover.”

“I don’t, I don’t. Stane is somewhere and he plans on using my arc reactor for something. I have to stop him. I have to… I have to find Sharon. She needs me.”

Toni pushes past him, stumbling over to the door to the workshop.

“Antonia!”

Toni finds herself rooted to the spot, and she turns slowly.

The look on James’ face is undefinable. “You require maintenance,” he says, roughly.

Tears edge her eyes. “You aren’t the Winter Soldier anymore, and I’m not the Engineer anymore, and I have to go. I have to save them, Pepper and Sharon. I have to save them.”

James shakes his head. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Toni says, finally. “You stay here. I’ll come back.”

James’ mouth twists unpleasantly. “Will you?” he says, coldly.

“I will. I will,” she insists, kissing him hard and recklessly. “I’m coming back, I’m coming back, Yasha.”

“Toni, Toni are you okay!”

She turns around and Rhodey is in the doorway, panting, clutching onto the frame for dear life.

“There was blood,” Rhodey says in a small voice.

She braves a smile for him. “I’m fine.”

She’s not.

Her chest still hurts.

“But I have to go now. I have to save them, Pepper and Sharon and all the SHIELD agents going for Obadiah. I need to save them. But I’m coming back.”

She climbs into her armour.

“I’m coming back,” she promises, and a hatch opens up in the ceiling.

She throws herself up into the air.

* * *

She tries Sharon when she’s in the air.

“Toni!” Sharon shouts, the wind roaring on the other side. “Toni, it’s Obadiah, he’s got a whole assembly line of armours just like yours under the arc reactor in your facility. He’s inside one of them! SHIELD’s here, they’re trying to arrest him, but-”

“-it’s not enough,” Toni finishes. “Yes, it won’t be. Is Pepper with you?”

“She is, she’s with me,” Sharon says, quickly.

“Get out of there, both of you, _leave_ , now!”

And then, she hears a thump.

There’s a scream, and the phone goes dead.

“Sharon!” she shouts. “Sharon! Fuck!”

She nears the Stark Industries facility with each passing moment.

There’s a shrill, grating sound.

“Incoming call, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, insistently. “It is Miss Carter.”

“Okay, yeah, yeah, put her through.”

She sees it, Sharon and Pepper standing there on the asphalt as it cracks underneath them, a massive cavity in the ground, and a large, heavyset armour in dull-grey. Sharon shields Pepper, covers her with her own body, and she feels the ache, the same ache for James, so savagely, in that moment.

No, she can do this without him.

He doesn’t want this life.

She can do this without him.

“Toni!” Pepper screams, having managed to grab a hold of the phone.

“Duck, both of you!” she shouts.

Pepper grips Sharon and dives both of them to the ground, just as Toni surges down and knocks Stane away from them.

She faces off against the behemoth of his armour, and the ground crumbles underneath their feet, stretching out from the hole that Stane had crawled from.

She hits a grating, the sound sharp and shrill. Stane breaks through, plunging through pipes and into the water below, while she tumbles along the unbroken part of the grating.

Klaxons blaze, hard and loud, making Toni wince, and glass shatters above her. She sighs and clambers to her feet, sweeping around the steel maze with her infrared, but perforated steam pipes cast red plumes and confusing shadows everywhere.

“It’s miraculous, Toni, it’s your Ninth Symphony. Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever.”

Stane’s voice comes from somewhere, somewhere that Toni can’t see and it sets her teeth on edge, the failure of it all.

“This wasn’t meant for the world,” she returns, coldly, still moving, still winding her way through the murk.

Stane scoffs. “How can you be so selfish? Do you understand what you’ve created? This will put the balance of power back in our hands for decades. Your country needs this.”

Toni snorts. “What kind of world will it be when everyone has one?” she demands.

“Your father helped give us the bomb. What kind of world would it be if he’d failed us?”

“A much better one,” Toni muses.

She emerges from behind machinery and girders. The squeak of metal makes Toni turn, just in time, to see Stane charge for her, like a bullet-train. She takes the hit, driven backwards in Stane’s vice grip, and she smashes into the cement wall, punching clean through it out into the street.

They crash into a truck trailer, slicing it in half, and going through onto the highway, tossing vehicles aside. More cars screech, collide, in an attempt to avoid the two clashing suits of armour.

A bus jack-knifes in mid-air and manages to land safely on the ground, narrowly averting disaster.

People scream, screech, a high, thin noise ringing through the air like a hollow metallic song, in an attempt to flee their vehicles.

“Miss Antonia, you have an incoming call from Miss Carter.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters. “Okay, put her through.”

“Toni, Toni, are you there?” Sharon demands, her voice high-pitched.

“I’m a little busy, Sharon-”

“The reactor’s been hit-”

Toni curses. “Get to the control room,” she snaps, avoiding a swing of Stane’s thick fist, with fluidity. “Shut it down.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to shut it down?” Sharon asks, sharp.

Stane reaches down grabs a Volvo station-wagon with a stunned mother and kids inside.

“Put them down,” she warns. “Your war is with me.”

Stane clucks his tongue. “People are always going to die, Toni. It’s part of the chess game.”

The mother grips at the steering wheel in terror, knuckles turning white. The children at the back sob and scream.

Toni’s fingers curl and uncurl, and the repulsors don’t grow hot.

“Emergency power!” she shouts.

“Miss, you’ll drain the-”

“Now!”

Stane winds up to throw the car, but Toni nails him in the gut with a huge repulsor blast from the RT in her chest. Stane is knocked back, the car leaving his grip, and thrown into hers. She places it down, carefully, lays it down so the mother’s eyes can make contact with hers.

The woman’s face is wan and bloodless, still clutching onto the steering wheel for dear life.

And then, she presses down on the gas.

Toni shrieks and pulled underneath the bumper and dragged along with the car, as it speeds forward.

There’s a shower of sparks, bright and hot in her eyes, and the clash of metal against metal cuts through the air, setting her teeth on edge.

Finally, through the haze and light of the traffic, she manages to push away the car from her. It speeds away, three children staring out the back window, gaping in disbelief.

She staggers to her feet, just as Stane comes blaring through, using cars as hopscotch steps, and they clash in a cacophony of steel and grinding hydraulics.

Stane knocks her into a mini-van with a snarl caked in metal and shoves her head into it, again and again, like he’s hoping to unspool her brains, let it drip down out of the armour like blush-pink pulp.

“Tony?” Pepper screams in her ears. “Where are you?”

Toni grunts and struggles, slamming her hands against Stane’s bulkier armour, shoving him away.

“We’re in the control room. Now what?”

“Central panel,” she grits out. “Red button. Press it.”

“Okay, okay,” Pepper mutters. “Thanks, Tony.”

“What’s the delta rate?”

“1-2-5-0,” Pepper replies.

“Damn,” she hisses.

“Damn!?” Toni hears Sharon shout in the background. “I don’t want to hear _damn_! Get up here!”

Toni’s HUD cracks under the pressure of Stane’s grip, and finally, God, finally, it’s like the anger rears its ugly head, instead of just slow-building frustration. She lets it fall through her like a flood, like a river, never-ending, ever constant, and she kicks out, aiming for the soft spot, where the plating of his armour doesn’t quite cover all the flesh of Stane’s belly.

Stane shouts, and his grip loosens.

It’s all that Toni needs.

She swings her fist and it catches him hard, right in the face. Her bones ring with the force, but she doesn’t care. The next is her foot, right in his thin, metal gut. He strikes next, but she ducks the blow, swiping underneath, because she has skill, where he has big, meaty strength.

She has known a hundred men like him in her time, a hundred men who drink themselves and gorge themselves to death, full of oil and grease and greedy, selfish decisions, and they think they own the world. They look at her, and they see something they can use, own, fuck, breed, and kill, when they’re done with her.

They forget her; she is easily forgettable to them.

She is the Engineer, but all they remember, all they see, all they fear is the fucking Winter Soldier.

A part of her resents James for that.

Her kill count, the red in her ledger, will never be as extensive as his, by virtue of time and age and service, but she is just as good, just as competent, just as effective, or at least she was, and she got none of the credit.

She is always so sick of being the little girl, hard done by, the little girl that had things taken from her, a life, personhood, love, laughing, joy, safety, protection, all of it, because that is all anyone sees.

Antonia Stark, the life she should have left, and the savage little beast left in her place.

Enough with that, enough.

“Pepper, Sharon, I am delegating this to you, _find a way_!” she snarls. She looms over Obadiah. “You know what happens when that reactor blows. A lot of people are going to die.”

Obadiah chuckles, breathlessly, and stumbles his way to his feet. “It didn’t have to end like this, Toni. You were down, you should’ve stayed down.”

“Fuck you,” she says and punches him again. “Pepper, Sharon, how we doing?”

“Thanks for checking in, Toni,” Pepper says, dryly. “Delta’s at 2300. It’s not going down.”

Toni’s throat flexes. “It’s too late,” she murmurs,

“Too late?” comes Pepper’s panicked, high voice in her ear. “What’s going to happen?”

“It’s going to blow a crater a mile wide,” Toni grinds out. “I’m coming to get you, okay, both of you.”

She flings a look at Obadiah, wonders strongly whether she should say, beat him down until his brain is nothing but pink pulp underneath that helm, and she thinks of Pepper and Sharon, stuck before a reactor that will explode, burn them to ash if they are caught in the blast.

The choice is nothing.

She flies off in the direction of the arc reactor, which shimmers like starlight, landing on the roof of the building. Her eyes land on a row of satellite dishes on the roof, and an idea begins to bloom.

“Pepper, Sharon, wait, stay put, we’re going to overload the reactor.”

Pepper makes a soft, panicked little noise at the back of her throat. “But it’s already overloading-!”

“No, it’s compressing energy,” she corrects. “We’re going to convert the plasma core to electricity and channel it up through the roof. Like a Tesla coil.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sharon says.

“Basically-”

“And we don’t need a science lesson!” she barks. “Just tell us what button to push.”

Toni sighs. “See a red submarine hatch? A wheel, a red wheel.”

“…No… _Yes_!” Pepper shouts.

Toni goes to work rearranging the satellite dishes, pulling wires out of consoles and creating a makeshift Tesla coil.

“Open it all the way, then standby to hit the master. We’ve only got one shot at this,” she orders.

She’s connecting a wire to the satellite beside it, when an eerie yellow light flickers off the metallic surface. She turns, a little stunned, when Stane lands on the roof, flames still licking off his blackened suit, pounding towards her.

Toni dodges the swipe of his big hand. “Pepper, hit the switch.”

“Toni?” Pepper says, loudly. “Which master switch-?”

The call cuts off in the middle of her sentence, and the arc reactor beneath her, gleaming bright and hot, surges up.

The glass surface that she balances on, shatters under her feet, and she grips onto the metal grating before she falls in and turns into dust in the swath of energy that expands from the reactor.

“Fuck,” she mutters.

“Toni!”

There are screams from down below, Sharon and Pepper, who are still in the arc reactor’s control room.

Toni takes a slow, steadying breath.

Obadiah looms over her in his massive, gargantuan armour, and the helm pulls back, revealing his smug, oily, slippery face, his pearly-white teeth cut in a smile.

“Look at you,” he says, so confidently, so arrogantly.

“Fuck off,” she snarls in reply.

“How ironic, Toni!” he continues, as if she’s never spoken, with that sort of self-aggrandising knowledge that he can say whatever the fuck he wants, and she’s just stuck listening to him, because she’s literally hanging from the rafters. “Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!”

“Pepper!” she snarls, peeking down through the grating.

“And now I’m going to kill you with it!” he says, self-satisfied.

A massive gun climbs out of his arm, aiming right towards her.

The gun fires, and she cringes out of instinct, but Obadiah is as much of a shit shot as he is an absolute pervert, and so the bullets manage to hit everywhere but her.

She starts laughing, high and thin, because _of course_ , he is a shit shot.

How could he not be one?

“You ripped out my targeting system!” he bites out.

“Time to hit the button, Sharon!”

“You told us not to!” Sharon retorts.

“I don’t need fucking mouth right now!”

“Hold still, you little cunt!” Obadiah growls.

“Just _do_ it!” she shrieks.

“But you’ll die!”

The grip on the grating loosens, and she slips a little, legs hanging mid-air.

“ _Push it_!”

The arc reactor cracks open, a surge of blinding light, like starlight, climbs towards her, and that’s the last thing she sees.

Starlight.

She laughs.

* * *

“ _You've all received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night. There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the arc reactor. Fortunately, a member of Tony Stark's personal security staff..._ ”

“ _Iron Man_ ,” Toni quotes, peering up at the television set in the anteroom. “That’s kind of catchy. It’s got a nice ring to it.”

Her eyes drag down to the super soldier at her feet, helping her with her heels.

“Must you,” she drawls.

James flashes her a smile that cuts like a knife. “You’ll indulge me, won’t you, doll?” he taunts. “I mean,” she makes a soft little noise when he’s particularly rough with one of the heels. “You did almost _die_.”

Toni bends over and kisses him, soft and slow, until she feels him go slack under her.

“It’s not technically accurate,” she says, when she pulls away, blinking at him innocently. “The suit's a gold-titanium alloy, but it's kind of evocative, the imagery, anyway.”

Phil, the bland-faced agent from SHIELD, holds out cue cards for her, his expression wiped clean. “Here’s your alibi,” he says, formally.

“Okay,” she says, offering him a faux smile.

“You were on your yacht,” Phil says, without missing a beat, without a prompt.

“I have a yacht?” she retorts.

“Yes, you do,” Phil replies. “We have port papers that put you in Avalon all night and sworn statements from fifty of your guests.”

Toni raises an eyebrow. “Darling, you really think that people are going to believe the traumatised, homebody heiress turned party girl overnight?” she says, unconvinced.

“They’ll believe whatever we want them to believe,” Phil tells her, toothy and too edged.

Toni narrows her eyes. “I am watching you, Coulson. Don’t think this is the end of this,” she warns.

Phil nods his head at the cue cards in her hand. “Just read it, word for word.”

Toni sighs and flicks through them. She frowns after a moment. “There’s nothing about Stane here,” she points out.

Phil nods, acknowledging the point. “That's being handled. He's on vacation. Small aircrafts have such a poor safety record.”

“Don’t I know that,” Toni mutters. “And the whole cover story that it’s a bodyguard? By the way, can I point out how ridiculously sexist it is to assume that it was a man in the armour? I am twice as competent as any man I have ever known.”

James clears his throat.

“Except for him,” Toni admits. “He and I are equal. Everyone else, though, everyone else is fair game for me.”

“But she has a point,” James says. “Antonia is the most terrifying person I have ever known.”

Toni presses a smacking kiss to his cheek over the growth of his beard.

“They’d be fools to assume it could only be a man in that armour.”

A sliver of pleasure curls in her chest. “Thank you. This is why you are the other half of me,” she murmurs, leaning up for a kiss, so he can thread his hand through the dark fall of her hair. “I still think it’s kind of flimsy.”

Phil sighs. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Miss Stark. Just stick to the official statement, and soon, this will all be behind you.”

Toni lifts her eyes to meet his, feeling an acid rush of hatred. “My father’s best friend removed the highly mechanised prosthetic in my chest cavity that allows me to continue living and tried to use that prosthetic to power a giant suit of armour, a gaudy version of mine if I can say, that he was going to mass-produce shitty versions of to arm the stupid of this world to create more death and more destruction. No, this will not all be behind me.”

“You have ninety seconds,” Phil tells her instead.

Pepper steps up, flashing a smile that is as easy as buttered popcorn to the SHIELD agent, casting her pale eyelashes low over her eyes.

Toni narrows her eyes.

“Agent Coulson? I just wanted to say thank you very much for all of your help.”

Phil smiles back, a more honest one that he’s given Toni, and there’s even a hint of a blush mottling his skin.

“That’s what we do,” he replies, almost soothingly. “You'll be hearing from us.”

Pepper nods. “From the Strategic Homeland-”

“Just call us S.H.I.E.L.D,” Phil cuts her off.

“Right,” Pepper sighs and watches him walk out. She turns around and catches Toni’s unimpressed look. “What?” she asks, offended.

“You have a soulmate,” she accuses.

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Don’t start with me.”

“Don’t start with _you_? I saw that,” Toni points out. “Sharon is my godsister. I’ve known her since she was a little girl. Pepper, I love you, but I will put your head on a spike if you cheat on her with the bland mashed potato agent.”

“You’re a disaster,” Pepper declares and turns to James. “Are you sure you want to deal with her?”

Toni squawks.

James sighs. “I don’t think I get a choice after all these years,” he says, morosely.

Toni almost kicks him in the crotch. Instead, she lifts an eyebrow.

“I know what choice you can have,” she says, with a sickly-sweet smile. “The choice between your hand and the fleshlight I bought you.” She stands. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.” She taps the cue cards against James’ broad chest. “You know, it's actually not that bad. Even I don't think I'm Iron Man.”

James rolls his eyes, making a gesture to get her to turn around, so he can zip up her dress. “You're not Iron Man,” he reminds her.

Toni huffs. “Am so.”

“You’re not.”

Toni sighs. “All right, suit yourself.” She leans into his touch, lets him wrap his arms around her waist, thumb the dip in her pelvic bone. “You know,” she murmurs, so close that their mouths are almost brushing. “If I were Iron Man or Iron Woman, I'd have this boyfriend who knew my true identity. He'd be a wreck, 'cause he'd always be worrying that I was going to die, yet so proud of the woman I'd become. He'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make him crazier about me.”

James grins, fleetingly, smoothing his broad hands down her arms, almost dipping her back. “Doll, you already have a boyfriend who knows your true identity, who is already a wreck because he is always worrying that you are going to die, but, like you said, is so proud of the woman you have become. He is wildly conflicted, which does not make him crazier about you, sorry, because he just wants to kill you even more.”

“You suck,” Toni declares.

James’ hand trails down and gropes at her arse, making her squeak and laugh.

“Do I really suck?” he growls, lowly, nudging his nose against hers.

“Only at comforting me; everything else, you are very competent.”

“Disgusting,” Pepper comments.

Toni turns around, gives her a withering look. “I am hot, he is hot; what is wrong with this sight?”

“You look like two seals fighting over a grape,” Pepper says, loftily.

“Fuck off,” Toni mutters.

“You two have the strangest friendship I have ever seen,” James murmurs.

“Oh, I’m sorry? _We_ have the strangest friendship you have ever seen? You spent an hour drinking an entire case of the beer Sam bought and stored in our fridge _just so_ he couldn’t have any,” Toni retorts.

James shrugs. “He needed to learn a lesson.”

“What was the lesson?” Toni asks, incredulously.

James flashes a pearl-cut smile at her. “That he can’t have nice things.”

“I hate you,” she mutters.

James presses his mouth to her cheekbone. “No, you don’t,” he says, in a low, rushed voice.

She remembers crawling towards the workshop, her heart dying in her chest with every moment that passed, James’ smile, his hands, the way he said _malina moya_ burning at the back of her eyes.

“No, I don’t.”

* * *

“And now, Ms Stark has prepared a statement,” Rhodey says into the microphone. “She will not be taking any questions.”

Toni steps up, when Rhodey treads to the side, and she curls her fingers around the podium.

“Thank you. It’s been a while since I was in front of you,” she says, lightly.

At the back, James braves a smile for her.

“I figure I'll stick to the cards this time,” she laughs a little. “There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop-”

“I’m sorry,” a determined blonde woman says, cutting across her ( _Christine Everhart_ , she remembers). “Ms Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you-”

“I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I'm a superhero,” she blusters a little, rubbing the back of her neck.

The woman leans back, satisfied. “I never said you were a superhero.”

“Didn’t you?” Toni blinks at her. “Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic. I'm just not the hero type. Clearly. And that’s okay, I mean-”

Rhodey’s hand falls onto her shoulder, squeezing. “Just stick to the cards, hun.”

Toni’s throat flexes. “Yeah, okay, yeah. The truth is…”

She looks down at the swimming faces, at Pepper and Sharon and James standing at the back, so stalwart, so steady, ready to go to war for her, if she asked it of him.

“I was in the armour that night,” she finds herself saying, her throat grating. “There is no Iron Man. Just me, Iron Woman.”


	14. xiv.

**2010**

After all these decades, after all the years that she’s spent sitting in a cell, waiting for HYDRA’s command, waiting to bloody her hands with some poor fucker, who had the terrible misfortune of pissing off HYDRA in some way, and then, after all the years she spent fixing suburban housewives’ appliances and ratty old cars, the Engineer is going to die.

Somewhere, somewhere down below if there is a righteous universe and hell is real, the Commander is laughing.

But the truth is as it is, is that the Engineer, or more commonly known as Toni Stark nowadays, is dying.

Her blood is turning to poison in her veins, because there is a highly unstable fusion reactor lodged in her chest, and the palladium core of that reactor is not made for human use, and it’s quickly contaminating her bloods, the sickness spreading to what is left of her lungs and heart, to her intestines and liver and gallbladder and pancreas and her kidneys and her uterus and ovaries and her spleen, and one day, one day soon, the sickness will creep into her brain.

She’s always had her brain, even before she had anything else, even before she had James – she doesn’t know if she can survive losing her brain.

She hasn’t told James.

She wonders if that makes her a terrible soulmate, to have this news, this news that will change everything, but not say a word, to anyone, not her soulmate, her friends, her godmother, her mother.

Maybe she is a terrible person for this, but in any case, she has to do it on her own. This is her war, and hers alone.

“So,” Pepper sings, jumping onto the couch and drawing a yelp from James, whose bowl of popcorn almost topples, if it weren’t for his quick reflexes and that metal hand of his settling around the rip.

All in all, he ends up sending one hell of a baleful look to Pepper, who takes it in stride and flashes one hell of a pretty smile back at him.

“What’s this I hear about someone not wanting to throw a birthday party?” Pepper demands.

Toni sighs. “Don’t start,” she warns.

“It’s 2010, which means you’re turning forty this year,” Pepper reminds her.

“Yes, I can do the basic mathematics,” Toni says, dryly.

“And yes, I know you don’t look a day over twenty-five – I hate you for that, by the way, you miserable bitch – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a birthday party for you.”

“No,” Toni says, simply. “James?”

James sighs and leans forward. “Antonia would like for everyone to know that she is uninterested in celebrating the day of her birth, as she does not consider it a celebration. I, personally, think such a day should be commemorated, but I’m just a soulmate, what the hell do I know?”

Toni sends him a withering look. “Seriously, what is the point of you?”

James points at her with his beer bottle. “I give you great orgasms.”

Toni makes a face, because she has to concede that point.

“Disgusting,” Sharon declares. “I don’t want to see you two sucking face. You’re like my parents.”

James’ face scrunches up. “That is an image I do not want to linger on,” he says, plainly.

“Well, it is sort of true,” Sharon points out. “I’ve known you both since I was a kid. Toni went with me to the doctor to get birth control pills.”

“That means I am more of an older sister,” Toni points out. “But not your mother; God, no, never your mother. And no birthday parties,” she says, sternly.

“Toni, come on, don’t be such a fuddy-duddy,” Sharon complains. “You’re turning forty; that’s not something to just throw away, just like that.”

“I don’t want one,” Toni repeats, shrugging.

“But why?” Sharon whines.

_Because I’m dying, and I’m going to die two days after I turn forty years old on this earth, and that is not something I want to celebrate._

* * *

In another universe, there is something called a Stark Expo, and a catastrophic event happens, people die, but that Toni Stark, who doesn’t have the red in her ledger that this Toni Stark has, saves the day, saves all of those people, saves herself at the same time.

Not in this universe, though.

In this universe, Toni doesn’t bother, Toni doesn’t have some savage, desperate desire to leave something of hers behind in this world, because she already has.

It’s blood.

That’s what she leaves behind in this world, it’s blood.

It’s on her hands, on her throat, between her legs, the world is drenched with it, the blood she has spilled.

That is her legacy.

So, there is no need for a Stark Expo.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still things to be done, things to be taken care of, to fix and facilitate, before she starts to rot, before she dies.

* * *

Firstly, Toni appoints Pepper as CEO of Stark Industries.

Pepper reacts just as well as he was expecting.

“Are you on drugs?” she demands, peering at her carefully, as if expecting to catch red, red veins in her eyes, a bloated look, something.

“No, I am not on drugs,” Toni replies, patiently.

Pepper throws her hands up in the air. “Why on Earth would you name me CEO of Stark Industries?” she asks, incredulously.

Toni shrugs. “Because you are ridiculously competent,” she says, honestly. “Because you are intelligent, and you know your way around a company. Pepper, you were _meant_ to be CEO, of this company or any company, but I would like it to be of this company.”

Pepper looks uncertain, her look small and childlike. “But it’s _your_ company,” she says, gently.

“It is,” Toni agrees. “But it should never have been mine. I don’t know…” she sighs. “I am an engineer, in more than one way. I am not a businesswoman. I am not meant to do this, not meant to _be_ this. I’m not good at it, Pepper. I’m not. You take it, you do better with it than I ever could. It can’t be me.”

Pepper shakes her head. “I don’t-”

“If I have been halfway able to run this company in the last year and a half, it’s through you,” she points out. “Take it, please, take it off my hands.”

“But why?” Pepper asks, plaintively. “Why now, after all this time? Don’t you want-”

“I never wanted any part in that company,” Toni says, bluntly. “I took care of it after my father died because that was what he wanted from me. But enough is enough. I like my house, Pepper. My little house with the big garden and the forest behind me. I like it here.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” Pepper asks, dubiously.

“Yes,” Toni laughs.

“Then, okay, if that’s what you want,” Pepper says, grudgingly.

That’s one _thing_ down.

* * *

“You don’t have to keep visiting me like this, you know,” Maria points out. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” Toni replies easily, handing her a mug full of tea, the smoke billowing towards the ceiling. “I just like to keep an eye on you.”

“You’re a good girl, _mija_ ,” Maria says, quietly. “A very good girl, but you have a life of your own-”

“You’re my mother,” Toni says, hoping that’s enough to silence this train of thought.

Maria’s lips twist, bitterly. “Oh, you and I both know that doesn’t mean much.”

Toni looks away.

Maria pushes on, though; she’s like a needle, prodding and prodding until she finds a neat little hole to slip through.

“You love Peggy a whole lot more than you love me or your father,” she murmurs, her dainty little mouth clasping the rim of the mug.

“I… understand Peggy,” Toni says, vaguely.

“It’s because these hands of mine, Antonia,” Maria looks down at her hands, splayed open against her lap, tan and withered. “They have never done the sorts of things that Peggy Carter’s did. I have been miserably aware of my inadequacies where that woman is concerned.”

“I thought you liked Peggy,” Toni says in a small voice.

Maria breathes a subtle outrage. “I do, I _do_ like her,” she says, her voice almost a snarl. “He was besotted,” she mutters. “Not in a romantic way, but you could tell, he lived on her every word; he _valued_ her opinion. She was _important_ , and so, as the incoming woman, I had to ingratiate myself with her.” She laughs, brightly. “Peggy wasn’t having any of it, of course; she isn’t the sort of girl you ingratiate to. She either thinks you’re worthy or unworthy, and if you happen to be the latter, you just deal with it. She didn’t understand; neither did Howard, of course.”

“What do you mean?” Toni asks, quietly.

Maria sighs and reaches out, tangling their hands together, splaying them out over their knees, which are already touching.

“Look at us, what do you see?”

Toni stares down at the picture Maria is trying to make. Her brow furrows. “Hands?” she says, dubiously.

Maria offers a sly half-grin. “ _Brown_ hands, _mija_. _Brown_. That matters; I know where you were, all those years, it perhaps didn’t, but it does _here_. I grew up in a little village in Argentina. My mother worked as a maid, and so did I. My father died when I was a child, you see, and my mother supported us, because there was no other option. We would’ve been on the streets otherwise. We lived in the house where we worked. When she needed help with the cleaning, I helped her. We worked long, terrible hours for nothing at all, but we had a roof over her heads and shitty food, but food on the table nonetheless. And when _el jefe_ crawled on top of my mother at night, shoved his hand under her nightgown and then his cock, well, we didn’t say anything. Sometimes, I would be in the same bed, and he didn’t even care.”

Toni almost asks _do you have a name_ , before she remembers she isn’t in that business anymore.

“My mother had no other choice. Either she let him do as he wanted with her, or she lost her job, and we would be on the streets. What other choice was she supposed to make?” Maria’s face twists, sharp and full of resentment. “And when I grew older, when I grew breasts and my legs were long and my face pretty, _el jefe_ ’s eyes turned on me. So, she sent me away to college. Genetics, you see.”

Toni’s face must show her surprise, because Maria’s expression changes along with it, dripping of rotten meaning.

“Quite,” Maria says, dryly. “Never expected something like that from me, did you?”

“I…” Toni trails off, unsure of how to answer.

“I didn’t always spend my time planning parties and fundraisers and going to high tea with women who have never suffered half of what I suffered to get a pittance of what they got in life,” Maria says, darkly. “Science was my passion, as much as I could hone it in a house where I feared for my life and my mother’s life every waking day. But we were poor, so I worked as a waitress to put myself through a degree that no one thought I could do. Men thought, just because I put on an apron and served them food or coffee, it was an open invitation to say awful things, about me, about my body, what they’d like to do to me, and to touch me, because I was flesh, a body, tits and hips and legs and a cunt, and that’s all they saw.”

Toni knows what’s that like; it’s a twisted comfort, a close friend that no one wants to remember.

The Commander’s slick, oily grin flashes behind her eyes, and she swallows against the bile rising in her throat.

“They had no qualms in telling me that I’d gotten fat, that they liked the dress I was wearing the day before because it showed how long and nice my legs were,” Maria says, disgusted. “They asked me if I had a boyfriend, a husband, would I like one, why I didn’t have children yet. Once I went to pour a customer some coffee and he just… grabbed one of my breasts, just like that, like I was _offering_ it to him.”

“You should’ve stabbed him with a knife,” Toni tells her, her hands suddenly hot and shaking.

Maria snorts. “If I’d done that, my boss would have fired me, I would’ve been kicked out of my degree, and all plans of a life better than my mother’s, saving her from being some pig person’s whore, scrubbing toilets and washing dishes and cleaning bedsheets for a living, that would have all disappeared. I finished college, pulled my mother out of the house, didn’t break the vase over _el jefe_ ’s head as much as I wanted to, and moved to America. I worked in a biotechnological research company.”

Toni’s face flickers with enough surprise that Maria’s face twists.

“Yes, _mija_ , your mother is an intelligent woman who also had a career,” she says, dryly.

Toni ducks her head in shame, her cheeks burning.

“I met your father at one of the parties that the US government was throwing for all of their contractors. The company that I worked for was heavily involved in the armed forces’ work with biological agents. I was one of the main scientists working on the projects they wanted us to work on. I was grabbing myself a drink, a glass of wine, when Howard joined me at the bar. He made some joke about the penis size of generals, and I laughed, and later, he told me that he thought he was drowning, that he was going through all the motions, and when I laughed, it was like I pulled him out of the water.”

Toni grins. “That is beautiful,” she says, softly.

“We went on a few dates, out to dinner, drinks, to a movie or two, a drive-in, would you believe it?” Maria says, amused. “I was surprised when princely, poised Howard Stark in those perfectly tailored suits showed up in slacks and a half-buttoned shirt and drove me to a drive-in theatre for cheap popcorn and soda for a date. I slept with him that night, jumped him in the back seat of the car. I was no virgin, and I don’t think I have ever laughed as much as I did that night,” she says, wistfully.

Toni grimaces. “I don’t think I want to hear this,” she says, grudgingly.

Maria clucks her tongue. “Before I was your mother, I was a woman, and I had sex, _mija_ , a lot of sex. I had a lot of sex even after I became your mother,” she teases. “Not anymore, of course. I’m a widow, after all, but the sentiment still stands.” She sighs. “Anyway, your father wasn’t the… wham-bam, thank you, ma’am sort of man that I had heard about him. They used to say, well, Jarvis used to say that he had a special bracelet made, out of diamonds, for all of his former lovers, as a memento of their time together.”

Toni makes a soft little noise of disgust.

“He was a moron,” Maria says, rolling her eyes. “But I kept waiting, you know, waiting for him to give me one of those bracelets, so I would know that our time came to an end. The bracelet never came, though,” she says, nostalgia glazing her eyes over. “He just kept taking me out on dates. And then, he invites me to his mansion for a Christmas party, around six to eight months after we start dating. That’s where I meet his little gang. Jarvis, of course, who I’d already met, Ana, who was very welcoming, and Peggy Carter. The infamous Peggy Carter.”

“You didn’t like her?” Toni says, surprised.

Maria shrugs. “Was I supposed to?” she says, dryly. “You know, it’s strange, everyone always puts me at fault because Peggy and I didn’t get along at the beginning, as if _I_ was the problem, as if _I_ wasn’t welcoming enough, as if _I_ didn’t put in the effort. Peggy wasn’t having it. Peggy was notoriously possessive and wasn’t much for girl time, you know. She had Angie, of course, back then, but not really other girls. She, well, she sort of,” she sighs. “Look, I know you are close, both of you, and I don’t want-”

“No,” Toni says, definitively. “Peggy is important to me, yes, but _you_ are my mother.” She squeezes Maria’s hand. “I know…” she looks down at her lap. “I know I haven’t been a good daughter.”

Maria opens her mouth to argue, but Toni shakes her head.

“I haven’t, I know that,” Toni continues. “I got closer with Peggy than I did you because it made sense to. She was the one who we… came to after we ran away, she was the only connection we had, and we-”

“-you bonded with her, you became attached,” Maria finishes for her, archly. “I always knew that. I saw it, right from the day she presented you to us.”

“But you never even liked her,” Toni says, biting at her lower lip, wondering how she could have ever misjudged someone so thoroughly, seen something that had never existed.

“I never said that,” Maria laughs. “We didn’t get along at the beginning, sure. Honestly, Peggy didn’t do well with girly-girls, as she used to see them. She didn’t do well with the girls who went after rich men. She thought they were strange, selfish, greedy. She didn’t know what to make of me when she met me. She thought I was after Howard’s money, and as much as she didn’t get along with him on various subject matter, she was protective as hell. She thought she had to be the shield between him and stupid decisions. And she loved him, I never denied that. And so, when she saw me, she was convinced that one, I was out to take him for everything he had, and two, I was temporary, something that Howard was willing to amuse himself with, until something better and flashier and prettier came along. To be fair, that’s exactly what I thought about myself for a while too.”

“But you weren’t. He fell in love with you,” Toni says, in a strange, childish voice, even if she is turning forty this year, even if she has never quite loved her parents the way she might have loved them if HYDRA hadn’t stolen her away.

“He was, but we all knew his reputation. Howard Stark wasn’t just _a_ ladies’ man; he was _the_ ladies’ man,” Maria says, smiling fleeting and soft, in remembrance of her dead husband. “So, Peggy wasn’t exactly all that open towards me. And I wasn’t so eager to be her friend if she wasn’t willing to be mind. I have my pride, after all.”

“Of course,” Toni murmurs, unsure of what to say other than agree.

“But time passed, and I didn’t go anywhere, I stayed in my own apartment with my mother, and I paid for her out of my own salary. I never took a cent from Howard, and so, she grudgingly allowed herself to become close to me. Sometimes, I think Peggy struggles with women.”

Toni’s brow furrows. “I don’t understand,” she says, hesitantly. “Peggy… she seemed like such a pioneer-”

Maria snorts, the sound holding no mirth. “Oh, yes, she was. A great agent, a great Director of SHIELD, a role model to all women. She’ll go down in history books for the things she’s done, the doors she opened, but she only opened those doors for some women, _mija_. Others were left in the cold, girls like me. It wasn’t her fault, of course, but every time I hear what a great woman Margaret Carter was, I can’t help but laugh a little. What did she do for girls who look like me? They call me jealous, bitter, resentful that I never amounted to half of the person she was. Where she… saved countries and stopped Russian assassins from wreaking havoc on our great nation, I… served hors d’oeuvres to old, fat men whom Howard wanted to sell weapons to. What a fulfilling, momentous life I’ve lived,” she sighs.

“I’m not going to say you sound bitter,” Toni says, sarcastically.

Maria just laughs, rather than take offence, her voice ringing bolder than anything Toni has ever heard from her mother.

Strange, Toni has never heard that sound from her mother before, never been welcome to that part of her, in all of these years that she’s known the woman – this Maria Stark is not known to her, perhaps, not known to anyone; she wonders, is this the woman that hid behind Howard Stark for decades and now that he’s dead, now that he can’t fill a room with his voice and his eyes and his words, she can finally talk, she can finally say whatever she wants to say.

Maybe all women should become widows in order to become women.

And now, Toni feels sicker with grief, with regret than she ever has, because she had bene one of those women, looked at her mother and dismissed her as just _there_ , just like Peggy had probably done, lingering in the background, with a smile, a kind word, a plate of cookies, maybe, and hadn’t looked deeper, waited, watched, wondered what Howard Stark saw in her mother, wondered what made her stay, settle for this life, and had instead, done what everyone else had done – decided that Maria Cerra was not worth her time nor her effort.

Maria deserved better than her.

“Peggy was… she was a good woman, a great woman, but she was a woman with limited experience,” Maria says, tiredly.

“Because she was white,” Toni says, quietly. “That’s what you’re saying.”

Maria chuckles. “I was trying to be more delicate about it, but yes, that’s what I was getting at. Peggy is white, and she grew up well, and she cannot be a pioneer for all women because she will never understand all women.”

“I guess I always thought the two of you were friends,” Toni says, licking her lips.

“Oh, _mija_ ,” Maria sighs and then, with easy, unthinking familiarity that she wouldn’t have leaned into before this conversation, throws her arm around Toni’s shoulders, bringing her into her side. “Of course, we were. We grew up, _mi corazòn_ ; I was young, and so was she, and she realised, quickly, that I loved Howard and he loved me and I wasn’t going anywhere. So, she got over herself, and so did I. But I won’t deny that it was hard in the beginning, and I won’t deny that it hurt when my daughter, the daughter I pushed out of me and mourned for so many years preferred her to me.”

The heat burns across her cheeks and jaw. “That’s not-” she begins, flustered, and the sentence falls off, abruptly, because she knows she’d be lying if she went on.

“It’s true,” Maria answers for her, without even shying away from the answer at all. “I am… getting over it now. It seems like a poor win, actually. She’s in a nursing home, and I’m just… _here_. I outlived all of them. You don’t know what that’s like, to be the last. They’re all gone now. Howard, Jarvis, Ana, Peggy, Daniel, Angie, Obadiah, my mother. They’re all gone, and I’m still here.”

“Peggy’s not gone,” Toni says, the words coming out like ash, like they’re incoherent and only she can hear what she’s saying. “She’s still… she’s still around. She’s just in a home. That’s not… that doesn’t mean she’s _dead_.”

“She doesn’t remember us most of the time when we visit,” Maria reminds her, with the sort of crudeness born out of years of mourning and moving on and never allowing herself to linger too long. “Sometimes, she looks at you and calls you _Maria_ ; sometimes, she thinks I’m one of the nursing home’s other inmates,” she snorts. “I… have come to terms with it now. It doesn’t hurt me like it used to.”

“It still hurts me, when I go and see her,” Toni says, honestly.

Maria smiles, fleeting and soft. “I have lost many people, Toni, and I’m much older than you. With age comes a certain… ability to deal with death.”

“Peggy isn’t dead,” she says, archly.

Maria sighs. “To me, she is. The woman she was, the woman I loved, she is dead to me. I see slivers of her when I go to the nursing home, but it’s never going to be like how it was when I knew her best. They’re all gone now. I’m the only one left.”

Maria’s hand around hers tightens at the memory, to the point of becoming painful, but Toni doesn’t say anything, just lets her mother talk.

“I think I’ve lost my ability to deal with death,” Toni confesses, suddenly, the words clawing off her tongue despite her best effort to cage them, bind them back.

Maria tilts her head, curiously.

“I can imagine that very easily,” she says, quietly.

“I was a child the first time that I killed a man,” Toni goes on, without missing a beat. “A man, _men_ , actually, they came into the… cells, we used to be kept in cells when we slept. Cages, really. We slept in cages. I… I had a talent for engineering, mechanics, computers, you know, right from the beginning, and they noticed. So, they nurtured that knowledge, because they knew it would become useful in the long term. I used to sneak away tools, screwdrivers, spanners, wrenches, clamps, drivers, pliers, you know. He… Yasha, he used to have problems with his arm, you know? It bothered him. I used to help him, without them even knowing – they wouldn’t have liked it.”

Maria’s stare turns proud. “Of course, you did,” she says, as if she’d expecting nothing less from Toni.

“One night, men came into the cells. I don’t know, I _still_ don’t know why they wanted us, but if I had to guess, it was for Yasha. They wanted him. I made him a gun, you know, from scraps I collected from my lessons, slipped it into his hands, and he shot the first few that came into the cells. One reached into mine, grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out. I…I climbed on top of him, like he was a tree, wrapped my legs around his shoulders, and slammed a screwdriver through his eye. He toppled, just like that, died, just like that. He was the first and after that, well, they wanted me to go along on the missions with the Winter Soldier. So, I started killing a lot, so many people. HYDRA pointed and I killed.”

“So did he,” Maria points out.

Toni looks at her, a little surprised.

Maria smiles, half-heartedly. “I’m just saying. It’s not one rule for you and one rule for him. If he’s a victim, so are you. If he did those things because he didn’t know any better, because of HYDRA, so did you. If HYDRA is the cause of all of those murders he committed, then HYDRA is the cause for you too, Antonia.” She looks away, just for an instant. “I’m surprised,” she admits.

“Surprised?” Toni says, carefully.

“Surprised you’re telling me any of this,” Maria tells her, solemnly, voice strained. “ _Mija_ , you’ve been back, I’ve known you like this for fifteen years now and you’ve never wanted to talk about what happened with HYDRA with me, or your father. What’s changed? Why are you telling me any of this now?”

_I don’t want to die without you ever knowing who I am, who I really am._

She doesn’t say that.

“You’re my mother,” she says, instead. “Isn’t that enough?”

Maria snorts. “I’ve also been your mother for the last fifteen years, and that hasn’t made you willing to talk to me about any of this until now.”

“I just…” Toni closes her eyes and then, she opens them, unflinching. “I want you to know who I am. You should know who I am, _mama_.”

“Keep going,” Maria urges, gently, smiling her half-smile.

“They made me train with him a lot, Yasha. He was… well, you might call it cruel. He was effective. He made me strong,” Toni says, firmly. “My first mission was in Tehran. We drove from Baton Rouge and caught a cargo plane to Tehran. The car broke down, and I fixed it. He sniped a protester, and they called it Black Friday, the pivotal event that led to the Iranian Revolution. I watched that man die, I watched a protest devolve into a bloodbath, and I didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to react, and it went on from there.”

“What was your first kill?” Maria asks, curiously.

“In 1981, I was in Washington DC-”

Maria makes a soft, disbelieving sound. “So close,” she says, mournfully.

Toni gives her a sad smile. “So close,” she agrees. “We were in Washington DC, outside the Park Central Hotel. The President comes out of the Washington Hilton Hotel; we are on the roof opposite the hotel. I have a rifle in my hand, the President in my scope, the barrel dips and I pull the trigger. It gets him just under the left arm, lodging in his lung instead of killing him. I fire a few more, badly, and there’s another shooter in the crowd, one we hadn’t accounted for. He fires too, and the Press Secretary dies and a police officer dies and a Secret Service agent dies, and I still don’t know, after all of these years, which of them I killed and which John Hinckley Jr killed.”

“That was you,” Maria says, almost awed, a little hungry, greed for information, for all the things her daughter was doing when she should have been at home with her. “You shot President Reagan.”


	15. xv.

Toni shrugs. “I shot President Reagan, but I failed my mission. He went to the hospital instead of dying there. He was supposed to die there but he didn’t. I turned around, knowing what I’d done, and I thought, _oh, this is where he kills me, this is where he turns all of that rage and skill on me, this is where I die_. I was afraid of him, back then, you see, the Winter Soldier; I’d seen the horrible things he’d done, and I knew I was important to HYDRA but I knew I wasn’t _as_ important to HYDRA as he was, at least, not back then. But he didn’t kill me.” She smiles, nostalgia a hazy sheen over her dark eyes. “He didn’t kill me. He pulled me away from the scene. He saw that I was frightened, and he reassured me. Stupidly, of course, because HYDRA wasn’t exactly one for mercy, and the commander…” her throat flexes. “The commander that we had was even less for it, especially but that I’ll come to later, but he tried to reassure me. told me that I would be given another opportunity, that I wouldn’t be decommissioned so easily.”

“Decommissioned?” Maria questions, confused.

“Killed,” Toni says, bluntly.

Maria winces.

“I was punished for it, because I failed. They dragged me to a trough of water and drowned me until I threw up, again and again. They beat me, until I bled. And then they dumped me back in my cell, and when I woke up, they’d wiped him all over again.”

“Wiped him?” Maria says, carefully, like she’s almost afraid to poke at it.

“They had this chair, this machine, it wiped memories. They never used it on me,” she reassures. “But they used it liberally on Yasha, made him forget about everything. So, when I woke up from my beating, he’d forgotten me.”

Maria watches her for a moment, an even, studious gaze that makes Toni feel like she’s being peeled to the root.

Funny, she doesn’t think she’s looked at her mother long enough to feel this way before.

“Tell me about this commander,” she orders.

Toni startles. “What?”

“I can see the look in your eyes when you mention him,” Maria says, finally, her face brittle and fierce. “You hate him, you hate him a lot more than you hate the others responsible for your captivity.”

“He was responsible for my captivity,” she points out. “For all of it. the rest, they were grunts, they were useless, dependent on orders. But he… he made the orders, he made the choices, he…” her eyes crumple shut. “He wanted me,” she confesses.

Maria’s mouth thins. “I thought so,” she says, with a half-smile.

“How did you-”

“The way you talk about him,” Maria shrugs. “And the look in your eyes, it’s the one that my mother used to get when she talked about _el jefe_. You have my eyes, you know. My mother’s eyes. You have our eyes. You have Howard’s smile, his mind, his hunger, but everything else, it’s me. You don’t know what that’s like, to know that you look like me, when everyone only focused on Howard, Howard’s heir, Howard’s legacy, Howard’s family, Howard’s wife and daughter.” She looks faraway for a moment, stare absent. “Will you keep going?”

Toni shrugs. “Honestly, the next couple of years were more of the safe. Missions, murder, mayhem, everything that HYDRA wanted us to do. When I was sixteen, though, Peggy became our target.”

Maria’s eyes dawn with realisation. “Ah, so that’s how it happened?”

Toni nods. “That’s how it happened.” She shrugs. “That’s the first time I saw you.”

Maria raises an eyebrow, a little bewildered. “I’m sorry?”

“A photo, Peggy had a photo of you and Howard on her wall, and that’s the first time I saw you,” Toni tells her, her voice high and light. “I remember, I remember touching the photo and wondering how you were, because you… you looked so much like me. And then, Peggy home. She knew we were there as soon as she stepped into the lounge. I attacked first. I was overconfident. I thought I could take her. She was old, and I thought… I am better than some American woman.”

Maria snorts. “I’m guessing that didn’t happen the way you thought it would?”

“It did not,” she says, wryly. “I attacked, and she fought me, better than most people have fought me. And we were… actually, we were evenly matched. She shot me.”

Maria tenses, the dark slash of her brow drawn together. “What?” she demands, short and sharp, her lip curling.

“She shot me, because she thought I was a threat,” Toni explains, firmly. “And then, she finally saw my face and she said, _that’s not possible_.”

Maria’s lips thin. “Because she, like all of us, thought you were dead,” she says, quietly.

“Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time,” Toni murmurs. “I fell unconscious, and I woke up in a hotel room, and there’s a plastic tube connecting me to Yasha, because he gave me a blood transfusion.”

Maria startles, reading the words she isn’t saying almost immediately.

Whoever says that Toni inherited her mind from Howard Stark clearly never met Maria Cerra.

“But…” Maria chews on her lower lip. “Peggy and Howard said… we talked about it once, when you first came back. I was privy to that conversation.” Her lip curls up, sharply. “I wasn’t always privy to the conversations, but I was there for that one. They were talking about how James survived the fall from that train in 1945, and how he had lived this long and still looked…” she trails off. “He still looks so young, so handsome, so do you. Both of you do. You look like you’re twenty-five or thirty, not-”

“Forty?” Toni finishes for her, dryly. “That’s because… oh, well, that’s where it started, with Peggy. I woke up in the hotel room, in the middle of a blood transfusion. And Yasha… I don’t know if you know but during the war, he was kidnapped by HYDRA and they… they injected him with a diluted version of what Steve Rogers got during Project Rebirth. So, when we did the blood transfusion-”

“-you got some of that super soldier serum,” Maria finishes for her, eyes lighting up. “Is that why… that’s why you haven’t really aged in all of these years that you’ve been back, isn’t it?” she says, her eyes almost feverish with delight.

“Yes,” Toni says, uncertainly. “At least, that’s what we think.” She shrugs. “It’s a little difficult for us to say because all the people who knew anything about the super soldier serum are dead: Erskine, Howard, Zola, Steve Rogers, the Red Skull. You see my problem.”

“I do,” Maria agrees.

“It wasn’t bright, what he did,” Toni huffs, folding her hands in her lap. “We got punished for that. It wasn’t pretty. The Commander, he wasn’t happy.”

“Because he owned you, and James had operated in a way that diminished that ownership,” Maria guesses. “James had staked his own claim, and he couldn’t stand that.”

“Exactly.” Toni’s mouth twists in a sick, pale copy of a smile. “Are all men like this?” she asks, weakly.

“Howard wasn’t,” Maria muses. “Maybe, in a different world, he might have been. You… the loss of you destroyed him, made him a shadow of what he might have been. But… sometimes, I think that was a good thing; sometimes, I was afraid of what he could have been.”

Toni angles her body to face Maria, leaning in towards her. “Were you afraid of him?” she asks, almost afraid to ask the question and hear the answer.

She has never lingered much on Maria Stark, as awful as it sounds, but has always thought that there was something solid, true between her and Howard.

If she was wrong, if Maria was afraid, if Maria has always been afraid, she doesn’t know what she’ll do; she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to contain that rage.

“I was afraid of him in the way that I was afraid of all men,” Maria tells her, honestly. “I grew up knowing that men hurt women, that men took what they wanted and women were left to pick up the pieces, to make something whole from those pieces. But… Howard never raised a hand to me, never forced me into his bed, never demanded sex from me when I didn’t want it, never hurt me or wanted me to do anything I was uncomfortable with. He didn’t steal from me or ask me to give up parts of myself to make him feel better. He didn’t sleep with other women or have any bastard children. He didn’t insult me or degrade me or take his problems out on me. When he got drunk, he’d do it far away from me, because he knew I didn’t like it.”

“But you were still afraid of him,” Toni says, quietly.

“I wasn’t afraid of him like you were afraid of your Commander, clearly,” Maria points out.

Toni shrugs. “He hated it, you know? He hated the fact that Yasha gave the blood transfusion. He was so convinced he owned us, and so, how dare we make a decision of our own accord, how dare we _change_ ourselves without getting the order first from him? God, he hurt us for it,” she muses. “He hurt us both so much, but with me, I always thought, I was so sure he hurt me because I didn’t want him, because I wasn’t even capable of wanting him back then. He did, that’s what he did.”

“Men can’t take it, you know,” Maria says, her mouth flattening in sympathy. “Men aren’t capable, they aren’t built for it: rejection. Some of them are okay, some of them do well with it, but so many of them, they react the complete opposite way. The righteous indignation, the _how dare she want someone else, not want me_ , and the immediate response to that is to say _I need to hurt her for it_. What you are telling me is, unfortunately, not a HYDRA or fascist thing, but I think it is very much a _man_ thing.”

“I hate that,” Toni blurts out, a hot, itchy feeling under her skin, as her nails scrape over her lies. “I really fucking hate that, I hate that we have to put up with that.” Her lip quivers. “You’re absolutely _sure_ Howard wasn’t like that?”

Maria sighs. “No, if I’d rejected him, he would’ve been upset, for sure, but he wouldn’t have taken it out on me. He wouldn’t have resented me for it. Obadiah did, though; he resented me so much for it.”

The words startle a noise out of Toni, much to her annoyance. “What?”

Maria offers her a pale copy of a smile. “You know, the party where I met Howard, I also met Obadiah. Have I never told you that?” she asks, curiously.

“No,” she says, almost sternly, her mouth frowning down at the corners. “You have not.”

“Well, I met Obadiah at the same party.” Maria laughs, as if it’s funny, as if they’re talking about a cranky uncle that got drunk at Thanksgiving dinners and fell over, and not the man who organised Maria’s husband and Toni’s father’s death and not the man who tried to kill Toni multiple times, who looked at her with such bitter, seething hatred that it could never be believed he was human in those moments. “He hit on me, you know. He was the first, and he was so sleazy about it. God, he wanted me to come with him to a coat closet. He had that golden hair and those blue eyes and he was so tall and handsome, a nice jaw, but he was so sleazy about it, like I was just ready to drop my skirt and spread my legs for him, and he made some comment about how I could ditch the old guy and come with him for the rest of the night and make twice as much. He thought I was an escort or a waitress.” She frowns. “I never quite figured out which one he thought I was. It didn’t matter, because I threw my wine in his face, and he looked like he was about to punch me right across the room.”

“You knew, even back then,” Toni says, almost amused at the irony.

Maria lifts an eyebrow. “What, that Obadiah was capable of great violence? It came as a surprise to very few people. I saw that look in his eyes that night, all those decades ago, the way he looked down at me and saw something that he’d shake off the end of his shoe, and because I’d had the audacity to deny him what he wants, he decided he hated me, hated me like he could choke the life out of me. And then, I met Howard. He sidled right in, gave me that charming smile of his, and apologised for Obadiah. Obadiah didn’t like that either.”

“He seemed to like you though, from what I saw of you two,” Toni says, carefully.

Maria gives her a faux smile. “After your father died, he offered to _take care_ of me,” she tells her, lip curling up sharply. “I knew exactly what he meant by _take care_ , as if I was some weak little thing that needed to be coddled and petted and kept safe.”

“He wanted to marry you,” Toni says, the words odd and sour on her tongue.

“He did.” Maria waves it off. “He made it very clear over the years that if Howard screwed up enough with me that he wouldn’t mind taking over that particular role,” she says, dryly. “There was a time-”

She closes her eyes, like it physically pains her to even think about whatever mulls around in her head, as if it’s some dark and twisted and shameful that she doesn’t much linger on.

“After you were born and after you disappeared,” she begins, haltingly. “Howard and I didn’t deal with it very well.”

Toni frowns. “He told me… Stane, I mean, he told me that Howard used to get drunk a lot back then and he’d hide out at Stane’s apartment because you didn’t like it,” she offers.

Maria nods, almost wearily. “Howard, he was drinking a lot. He couldn’t deal with it, losing you and not knowing where you were, how to get you back, the feeling that he’d failed. He always drank, that wasn’t a secret, but he was drinking so much more. He was in hospital a couple of times; they pumped his stomach. He’d pass out on the lawn and I’d have to drag him into the house bodily with Jarvis’ help. After a while, I put an ultimatum to him. I told him that I’d leave him if he didn’t stop drinking.”

Toni’s face must show her surprise because Maria makes a soft, _I know_ noise.

“But he didn’t stop,” she says, carefully.

“No,” Maria scoffs. “He did not. Instead, he decided to cheat the system by getting drunk at those… you know, cigar and brandy conclaves that men have and sleep off the drunken stupor and hangover at Obadiah’s place, so I wouldn’t know. Like I didn’t know,” she says, sourly. “Of course, I knew. And Obadiah would show up at our mansion, spoon-feed me some lies about a meeting that went too long, and that he’d just fallen asleep in whatever contraption he was building. For a long time, I honestly thought he was having an affair, like it was this slow-moving truck and I was standing in the middle of the road and I knew it was going to hit me but I was just frozen, couldn’t move. In hindsight, Obadiah probably relished that. Jarvis didn’t like him, that’s for sure.” Maria chuckles, an opalescent sheen of nostalgia covering her eyes

Toni finds herself smiling in reminiscence as well. It had been years since Edwin Jarvis had died, and yet, she doubts whether she’ll ever meet anyone that fits her quite like he had.

“Jarvis… thought it was inappropriate how often Obadiah would come to the house when Howard wasn’t there, how often he would use the excuse that Howard was sleeping at his place to make time with me. I didn’t like that either,” Maria huffs. “But I couldn’t very well tell my husband’s second-in-charge that I thought he was a lecherous prick.”

“Of course,” Toni says, dryly.

“We almost divorced because of it, you know,” Maria murmurs. “If the resulting shockwave wouldn’t have destroyed Stark Industries.”

Toni’s eyes widen. “I didn’t think…” she trails off, unsure of how to answer.

“What, that it got that bad between us, or that I don’t seem like the sort of person – _woman_ – to contemplate leaving her husband and starting a new life somewhere else. Hawaii,” she muses. “I think I would’ve liked it there.”

“You could still go,” Toni offers.

Maria snorts. “And leave you?” she squeezes Toni’s hand. “What sort of mother would I be if I just left you to your own devices? A very strange mother, that’s what I’d be.”

 _When I’m dead, you can stay in Hawaii as long as you please_ , Toni thinks and comforts herself with the thought.

“Can you stay a bit more?” Maria asks, an uncertain tinge to her voice. “Or will James need you back home?”

Toni snorts. “What makes you think Yasha needs me anywhere?” she says, almost taunting.

Maria huffs. “I forgot, you’re one of those new-fangled, go-getter, independent women, aren’t you?” she teases. “Don’t need a husband or a lover for anything. Although, if I had _that_ lover-”

“ _Mama_ ,” Toni exclaims, blushing furiously.

“God, Howard hated him until he died,” Maria laughs.

“Why?” Toni demands. “Why did he hate him so much?”

Maria sighs. “Oh, _mija_ , Howard… he came from a different time, you know. He just… he always had this idea that he was supposed to protect you, from everything, you know. He was your father and he had these dreams, I suppose. He would… do all the things fathers are supposed to do, pull out the shotgun when you went on your first date; he was raised to believe that a father protects his daughter from the evil in the world. And when the time is right, the father gives his daughter away to a man who will also protect her. He felt he failed you, with HYDRA. He thought it was his fault, that he had taunted them by doing _something_ into taking you. He didn’t realise that it didn’t have anything to do with him at all. He was convinced the whole universe revolved around him, your father.” Maria rolls her eyes. “And when you came back, well, all those brilliant ideas of fatherhood were dashed, and he was left to deal with-”

“With me,” Toni says, sourly. “With what came back. Not his daughter, but a murderer in her place.”

Maria lifts a delicate eyebrow, with enough perfect condescension that it makes Toni shrink away from the look. “Do you think I give a damn about how many people you’ve killed?” she asks, carefully.

“Most people would,” Toni reminds her. “In polite society, I’ve been told it’s something they frown on, murder.”

Maria smiles, sharp this time, sharp enough to cut like a knife. “In polite society, yes. I don’t really give a shit about polite society, Toni. I didn’t grow up in polite society. Furthermore, I don’t really care about anyone that isn’t you. Maybe that makes me an awful person; I’m too old to do anything about it. I’m set in my ways, and you came home. That’s what I wanted.”

“I always thought I was playing a part,” Toni says, shamefully. “The part of your daughter.”

Maria snorts. “There is no part, because you _are_ the part. Whatever you are is whatever my daughter is. There is no role here that you’re stealing, Toni. It’s yours; it can only ever be yours.”

“Your daughter might have been a very different person, had she been allowed to stay with you,” Toni points out.

“So?” Maria says, defiantly. “She doesn’t exist, this mythical daughter you keep referring to. In this world, in this time, you were taken from us and you came back to us as an adult, and we loved you for it. We loved you for whatever you were. _I_ love you for whatever you are. You are Antonia Stark; this is your life, no one else’s. You are not a placeholder, a second choice, a consolation prize. _You are Antonia Stark. Be Antonia Stark._ ”

Toni does something which she has always struggled to do.

Today, after all of this, it comes with an easy, unthinking familiarity.

She reaches out and wraps her arms around her mother and tucks her face against her mother’s neck and breathes and wishes she could live, so she could have more of this.

There is something to be said about the strength that comes just from being held by your mother.

* * *

“What is this?” James asks, curiously, staring down at the table.

Toni shrugs. “It’s an arm.”

James pauses and looks up at her, brow creased. “You made me an arm,” he says, in a tone that she can’t quite define.

“I made you an arm,” she agrees.

“But why?” James asks, confused.

“Because I wanted to.” Toni shrugs. “Because I am sick of you having to put up with the thing that HYDRA gave you. Because I love you, and I want to do this for you. Because let me take that HYDRA piece of rubbish from you and give you something better, something made from love.”

“Toni,” James says, so unbearably soft. “Oh, Toni, come here, would you?”

Toni sighs. “You’re going to be all nice and-”

He wraps an arm around her waist and lifts her up into the air, against his hard, firm body, and swings her around until her legs are kicking up in the air and she’s squealing.

“I love you,” he says, putting her on the table and sliding between her open thighs. “I love you. Thank you for doing this for me.”

“You are very welcome,” Toni says, kissing him quickly on the corner of his mouth. “Now, let’s get this off you.”

* * *

James watches in silence when she takes the arm off. It’s almost second nature now, though, to work on the arm, having done his maintenance since she was a child. She removes the plating first, and then deadens the wiring so he can’t feel pain, and he watches her with startling intensity that makes her cheeks heighten with colour.

She pulls the wires free, and finally, she finds the casing near his shoulder, and dislodges it with some work. She smooths a hand over the angry red scarring around his shoulder that has never quite healed and pinked over.

“It’s ugly, I know,” he says, smiling a thin smile at her.

“It’s as ugly as my arc reactor is,” she says, sternly. “You gave me plenty of shit for that, remember?”

“So, then, what, we’re both ugly?” James says, his smile flickering.

Toni sighs and grips his knee. “We can be ugly together.”

But when she removes the arm that HYDRA gave him so that he could be their knife in the dark and gives him one that’s made of black chrome, gold swirling through the gaps of the plating, he wakes up from the anaesthesia with a lazy smile, only to find her looming over him, her hand in his hair.

“It’s growing long now,” she murmurs.

“What is?” James asks, making a smacking sound with his mouth.

She sits on the edge of his bedside. “Your hair, it’s growing long now,” she says, fondly. “It’s almost at your shoulders.”

James nods, his eyes half-mast. “Some of the guys call me a hippie down at the bar nowadays,” he murmurs.

He lifts his hand, his metal hand, and peers at it.

“I can lift my hand,” he says, almost amazed. “I can-”

He touches her face, smooths a thumb over her cheek.

“I can feel you,” he says, so unbearably soft. He lifts his other hand to touch her other cheek. “I can feel you, _malina moya_. I can feel you.”

“Of course,” Toni says, crawling beside him onto his bed. “Of course, you can feel me. Clearly, with all of my many skills, I can add my competency as a prosthetic surgeon to them.”

James huffs out a laugh. “Clearly, you can. I can _feel_ you.”

Toni flutters her eyelashes. “You can _feel_ me.”

James drags her in with his flesh arm. “I hated that arm,” he confesses against her hair, his voice full of loathing.

“I know you did,” Toni says, immediately, and she brushes the hair out of his eyes.

“Thank you for taking it from me,” he tells her and holds her close.

“You are so very welcome,” Toni says, something knotting in her throat. “Now, can you let me cut your hair?”

James leans forward with a bright smile, a smile no longer hindered by the clench of his jaw, or the wrinkles around his eyes, and shakes his head, wrings his hair, so that it bats her in the face, and she squeals, pulling away abruptly.

His hand tightens around her hip.

“Is there any pain?” she asks, breathlessly.

James flexes his new metal arm, and her eyes are drawn to it, the ripple of the metal, how it gleams in the low light.

Despite herself, she gets wet.

“No, there’s no pain,” James says, quietly. “I can feel everything, I just have to… I have to think about doing something with it, and I can do it. There’s no lag, no delay, it’s just… it’s just like my real arm. _You_ did that for me. I want you.”

Toni grins, shy and bright, showing the full line of her teeth. “That was a neat segue,” she teases.

“Well, I’m a man who knows what I want,” James growls, nipping at her shoulder.

“If you get on me, will it hurt?” Toni asks, curiously.

“You’re the one that put the arm on me; shouldn’t you know?” James points out.

Toni scowls. “Will you please just answer the question?” she asks, frustrated.

James grins down at her, fingers brushing the hair from her eyes. “I’m just kidding; I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Toni says, shaking out her hair so that it spills dark and soft over the shabby little cot she’d placed in her workshop. “Now, get on top of me.”

“Okay, fine,” James sighs, long-sufferingly, and climbs on top of her.

He touches her with his new arm and slides his fingers between her legs.

* * *

A man names Ivan Vanko attacks her.

It’s all very dramatic.

The door breaks down, their nice, little wooden door, in a shatter of chip, and Toni shrieks, stumbling off the couch, and she’s unhooking the Kalashnikov that had been strapped to the underside of the coffee table, and pointing it at the door.

A man storms through, naked from the waist up, but for a strange harness wrapped around his chest, with long tethers that stretch down to his wrist and end in long wire ropes, a few feet long.

It’s the thing in the centre of his chest that worries her – it’s an exact replica of her arc reactor.

It shines, and the tethers light up, become striking, like lightning come to life.

Toni takes a step back, taking a deep, steadying breath.

She could make it down to the workshop before he’d have the chance to kill her and get into her armour.

_No, fuck that._

She raises her gun and fires, and he blocks it with his whip of lightning. The bullet is batted away like a fly, an unbothersome little thing. He lunges for her, striking with one of the whips, and she lands behind the coffee table, raising it like a shield.

He strikes again and manages to slice the edge of the table right off.

_For fuck’s safe._

She prepares to use the table as a battering ram, to shove him back, to throw him off balance, and when she does, she puts enough force behind the force that it does push him back.

The whips crackle, and she narrowly avoids the blow, as they swing haphazardly towards her. She tosses aside the table and kicks out, catching him in the ribs. She hears a crack, and he grunts, doubling over. Her vision blurs, and it’s enough for him to recover, to belt her across the face with the whip. She ducks just in time and sweeps his legs out from underneath him.

He lands with a great thud on the ground, and the whips react much like a weed whacker in a closed room. She crawls on top of him and curves a hand around the arc reactor, blocking the light from view, casting half her face in shadow.

She bares the razor line of her teeth at the stranger and rips it right off, tossing it in her hand, before she punches down, quick and hard, hard enough that she feels his skull shatter on impact.

His pupils fix and dilate, in a matter of moments, and he’s brain-dead, just like that.

She climbs to her feet.

Even dying of heavy metal poisoning, she’s still got it.

“Uh, what the hell happened?”

Toni turns her head, skating over the damage done to the lounge room, and finds James hovering in the doorway, holding a plastic bag that is already condensing.

Toni blows out a lock of hair that strays a little too close towards her eyes. “I was attacked,” she says, lamely.

“I can see that,” James says, slowly. “I went out to get milk.”

“I know.”

“I don’t understand what happened.”

“Honestly,” Toni sighs. “Neither do I.”


	16. xvi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for the "Red Room Tony" square (A2) of the Tony Stark Bingo 2020.

“Toni, I have the papers!”

Toni looks up from where she’s busy replastering the wall in the lounge room.

“That’s great, Pepper,” she says, turning around, and her eyes immediately catch another pair, cast in moss green.

“What the-” she begins to say, hotly.

“Oh, Toni, I know you don’t like visitors,” Pepper says, apologetically. “But this is my new PA, you know, after you named me CEO of your gigantic company, Natalie Rushman.”

“Natalie Rushman,” Toni repeats, slowly, fixing her with a baleful look.

Natasha smiles at her, completely perfect and fake, with just enough teeth to make her seem innocent. “That’s right, Natalie,” she says, extending her hand for Toni to shake.

Toni eyes it like it’s made out of poison. She turns her head and shouts, “Yasha! Yasha, could you come in here, it’s important!”

“Sorry about her,” she hears Pepper mutter to Natalie. “She’s had an odd… life, I guess you could say. She doesn’t exactly conform to social niceties all the time.”

“That’s fine,” Natasha says, politely. “I don’t take offence.”

 _That’s because you’re not real_ , Toni thinks, snidely.

James walks in, cleaning his hands with a dirtying rag. “Toni, what is it-”

He falls absolutely silent when he sees Pepper’s new companion, and his gaze turns flinty.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he snarls.

Pepper looks taken aback by the hostility. “James?” she says, unsure.

“You shouldn’t be here,” James says, dangerously, flinging a fierce look at Natasha.

Natasha simply puts her hands up in the air. “I didn’t mean-”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Toni says, squaring her shoulders, something akin to rage boiling over.

“Toni-”

Toni narrows her eyes. “You don’t get to call me that,” she says, quietly. “We aren’t friends, Natalia.”

“Natalia?” Pepper says, her voice high and thin.

“We did you a favour, a couple of years ago, because we’d once been in your position and we had someone to vouch for us, but that’s over. Any partnership that we had with SHIELD ended when my godmother was checked into a nursing home. You should be fucking grateful that we didn’t recommend for them to shoot you dead; instead, you come into my house, on the arm of one of our friends, _our friend_ , Natalia; what do you think I’m going to do to you now?” Toni asks, her voice sharp around the edges, as she takes a step forward.

“You don’t know why I’m here,” Natasha says, patiently.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Pepper snaps, her voice splitting through the air like a screech. “Why are you calling her _Natalia_? What does she have to do with SHIELD? Why are you two so angry with her?”

“Because her name isn’t Natalie Rushman,” Toni says, coldly. “It’s Natalia Romanova, or as she now goes by, Natasha Romanoff. We knew her, when we were with HYDRA. We trained her. She was part of a defunct Soviet initiative called the Red Room that raised little girls to be trained killers. She defected a couple of years ago, we vouched for her, and now, she’s shown up on our doorstep, hand in hand with one of our best friends. So, what do you expect me to do with that, Natalia?”

Natasha sighs. “Do you have to be such a killjoy?” she asks, dryly.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Toni demands.

“Yeah, you know what,” Pepper interjects, folding her arms over her chest and giving Natasha one hell of a steely look. “I’d like to know that myself.”

Natasha shakes her head, staring at Toni and only Toni. “I don’t think you want me to explain why I’m here in front of everyone,” she says, patiently.

Toni feels a sudden, sharp stab of fear, wondering if SHIELD hadn’t left them alone as much as she’d expected or wanted them to, if they knew about the palladium poisoning, if this is the latest in a line of tricks to wrangle the armour from her.

“What?” James says, suddenly intrigued, stepping forward. “Why wouldn’t she want you to explain why you’re here in front of us?”

“Yasha,” Toni tries to say.

“No, what’s going on here?” James asks, his mouth thinning in frustration.

Natasha looks at Toni, with a stare that tells her _it’s all on you, you make the decision._

“Does SHIELD know?” she finally asks, something slumping in her shoulders.

“Yes, they do know,” Natasha replies, promptly.

“Is this… are you here to get to the armour?” Toni asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“No, those aren’t my mission objectives; I was tasked with… keeping an eye on you,” Natasha hedges.

Toni scowls, instantaneously. “I am not an invalid,” she snaps.

“You should be glad that I’m here and not some other agent,” Natasha retorts. “I, at least, have a benevolent interest in making sure you stay alive.”

“You know what, I’m really _hating_ the double-speak,” Pepper barks, her voice abruptly ending the dialogue between Toni and Natasha. “James, are you confused?”

“I am very confused,” James says, displeased, which makes Toni wince.

“I’m not going to say anything,” Natasha reassures. “But might I suggest that you just tell them; it’s not going to get easier.”

Toni takes a deep, steadying breath. “I’m not impressed,” she says, flatly. “At all. I’ll be having words with Fury, and they won’t be pleasant.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that,” Natasha murmurs.

“I don’t appreciate being backed in a corner, either,” Toni says, voice thin and taut. “This is my secret, not yours, not SHIELD’s, and it’s mine to tell when I please, and you’ve taken that from me. You’ve made it on your terms. I won’t forget that so easily.”

Natasha lifts her eyes, almost defiantly, willing to accept the consequences. “I understand.”

“Good,” Toni says and then, turns to James and Pepper. “I’m dying.”

James and Pepper just stare at her.

“What,” James says, swallowed hard, like he’s not quite registering what she’s saying. “What are you talking about?”

“The arc reactor,” Toni says, bluntly. “It’s killing me. It’s been killing for months, probably ever since I got it. Wait, that’s not particularly accurate; it’s not really the arc reactor, it’s the core. It’s made of palladium, and palladium was never meant for extensive use within the body. It’s not particularly compatible with human biological process, and the serum, whatever is inside of me, it’s just not good enough to combat the effect of the palladium in my body.”

“But… you’re healthy,” Pepper stammers. “I can see you. I mean, I see you all the time. You’re healthy. You talk and you walk and you eat and you drink and you run. I mean, there’s nothing _wrong_ with you. I can’t see anything wrong with you.”

“The palladium is rotting my body from the inside out,” Toni explains, patiently. “It’s poisoning my blood. I’m at 76% blood toxicity right now. In a week or two, my organs with start shutting down at a rate where the serum is unable to heal them. I’ll still be able to walk and talk and do all of the things you mentioned, Pepper, but I’ll probably just drop dead soon enough.”

James flinches and looks away.

“This is…” Pepper licks her lips. “This is real, Toni. I mean, this is _real_?” she asks, in a small voice, in a child’s voice, like she can’t dream of believing such thing.

“It’s real,” Toni says, gently.

She looks at James.

“Yasha?” she tries.

He just stares at her, holding himself sharp and full of fury, the despair drying up into rage in an instant.

He looks at her as he had when she’d flown back to their house from Gulmira that very first time, and he’d seen it, riddled with bullet holes, after getting the phone call that she’d gotten into a punch-up with terrorists and the US Air Force in an active war force.

“Yasha, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you anything earlier,” she says, taking a step forward.

He just stares at her and then, after a moment of just watching her face, he walks away, disappears off into the house.

A part of her heart leaves with him.

“Can’t you fix it?” Pepper asks, quietly. “I mean, you can fix anything, can’t you?”

Toni smiles at her, even if her heart is breaking, and she reaches forward to tangle her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she offers. “I can’t fix this.”

Pepper’s eyes swim with tears, and before they can fall, she throws her arms around Toni’s shoulders, clutching at her hard enough to bruise. Toni startles, unsure of how to react, and then, after a moment, she wraps her arms around her again.

“You bitch,” Pepper whispers against her shoulder. “How could you not tell us?”

“I was… I guess it my stupid way of protecting you. I didn’t want you to watch me slowly die in front of you. I thought if it came out of the blue, it would be easier for you to get over in the long run.”

“That’s so… that’s so stupid,” Pepper mutters. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I don’t…” Toni frowns. “I don’t deal so well with emotions,” she explains, hopefully. “I’m not good with grief and trust and all those human things.”

“Can’t you just… I don’t know, can’t you just fix it?” Pepper asks, her hands tightening on Toni’s waist.

“No, I have tried, but I can’t. This is a… this is a done deal, Pep,” Toni says, as kindly as possible.

“I don’t accept that,” Pepper says, pulling away so she can fix her with a fierce look. “I don’t accept that, Toni, and you shouldn’t either. You deserve better than that. Think of all the things that you’ve dealt with and survived and escaped from; this is how you die? Bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” Toni asks, sceptically.

“Bullshit,” Pepper declares. “I am calling bullshit.”

“What does that even mean?” Toni asks, confused.

“It means this is not happening; I refuse to believe that this is happening.”

“You can’t just ignore this; it’s happening, Pepper,” Toni insists.

“No,” Pepper shakes her head, stepping back. “It’s not happening. You fix it.”

“Pepper, I can’t just-”

“No, you fix it.” Pepper backs away from her. “I’m going to let you deal with your angry soulmate; he might be breaking things in there. Remember to duck and throw things back, if he does.”

“I think that might be encouraging domestic violence,” Toni points out.

Pepper gives her a scathing look. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, actually that was a bad joke to make,” Toni agrees. “Plus, you know, I am a victim of violence at the hands of men, too. So, there’s a double ick factor there too.”

“Fix it, Toni,” Pepper says, her voice gentler.

Toni’s eyes burn. “I have tried, Pepper,” she grits out.

“Try harder; I can’t…” she shakes her head. “I can’t lose you. You’re my best friend. You’re like a sister to Sharon. You are the closest thing that the two of us have to family, and yes, I did remember that I have an actual blood, biological sister. Just, _fix_ it, go and deal with your soulmate, and fix it.” She turns around and fixes Natasha with an equally terrible look. “You, on the other hand, you are going to come with me and explain the extent of your lies and your corporate espionage and your shady behaviour.”

Natasha looks uncomfortable. “I am not at liberty to say anything like that, Miss Potts-”

“Oh, believe me, when you’re being interrogated by me, you’ll be saying everything I want you to,” Pepper says, coldly. “Now, will you please come with me, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha eyes Toni for a moment, who holds her hands up in the air.

Finally, she sighs and leaves the house with Pepper, who turns around just at the last minute, just on the threshold.

“Fix it, Toni,” she says, gently. “I don’t want to see you die; I love you too much.”

Pepper leaves her breathless, with her eyes stinging and flooding with tears, and she has to hold the couch just for a moment to make sure that she can actually stomach the efflux of emotion.

Okay, now to deal with James.

She finds him in the kitchen, plodding away with cupcake batter, which he pristinely pours into the muffin cups.

“I’m guessing you’re angry,” she says, simply.

His shoulders are bunched up, knotted with tension.

“Angry is the least of it,” he replies, tersely.

“Will you please turn around and talk to me?”

James bangs down the bowl full of batter on the counter and rounds on her, a mutinous expression on his face, twisting all of it up until it’s all bleak and hard.

“Why?” he demands. “Why the fuck would I do that when you haven’t talked to me at _all_ in months?”

Toni closes her eyes. “That’s not what happened.”

“Yes, it is, it is _always_ what happens here,” James barks at her. “You do these things, you do these things that put your life at risk, and then, you don’t fucking _tell_ me-”

Toni reels back, her shoulders straightening. “You think I did this to myself?” she asks, disgusted. “You think I just decided one day, oh, I’d like to give myself a terrible, incurable, painful disease that will kill me quick? What a fucking joke.”

The anger falls away from James’ face, just for a moment, as he takes in what she just said, and then, it returns, burning hot and fast, as if it had never disappeared in the first place.

“When?”

“When what?” Toni asks, confused.

“When did you find out about the… whatever’s wrong with the arc reactor, when did you find out?” James asks, his voice clipped, his hands shaking, curled into fists.

Toni takes a deep breath. “In February.”

James nods, unseeing. “So, that’s three months, then.”

Toni inclines her head in acknowledgement.

“You’ve had this debilitating, incredible secret for three months, and you didn’t say a word of it to me,” James scoffs, his voice lined with disgust.

“It’s not that easy-” Toni tries to argue.

“Oh, give me a fucking break, Toni; of _course_ , it’s that fucking easy,” James snaps at her. “All you had to do was tell me, and you didn’t, because you never tell me _anything_. You didn’t tell me when you went to Gulmira; you didn’t tell me you were signing over your company to Pepper; you didn’t tell me you were making me an arm; why the fuck would you tell me about you dying because of the arc reactor?”

“Are you seriously throwing Gulmira back in my face?” Toni asks, incredulously. “After all of this time?”

“Of course I am!” James throws his hands up in the air. “It’s the same thing. You’re doing the _same_ thing! You’re making decisions for all of us, without even talking to us about it. you’re putting yourself in _danger_ , and I don’t even get a fucking courtesy conversation, Toni. And I thought, I _really_ fucking thought, after Gulmira, you got it into your stupid head that we don’t do things that way, that we’re soulmates, that you keep me fucking informed, just like I would keep you informed, that we’re a fucking team, and then, you just go and prove that you don’t think of us as a team; even after all of this time, it’s you and it’s me, but it’s never a _we_ to you.”

“That’s not fair,” she says, lowly.

“That’s bullshit,” James says, scathingly. “All you had to do was open your fucking mouth and tell me what was going on the second you found out. And you didn’t. And you never will, because there is something fundamentally a part of you that will never tell me anything, because you don’t need think I need to know.” He throws his hands up in the air in surrender. “What am I supposed to do with that, huh?”

She doesn’t like how his words settle in her gut, cheap and thick, like they’re right, like there is something fundamentally broken and wrong in her, like this is the only legacy she has from HYDRA, mistrust and secrets and hurt feelings, and James is the only one who is able to scrabble anything good and decent from decades of torture and brutalisation.

Maybe she never had a chance.

“Did you make my arm because you knew you wouldn’t be there to see me enjoy it?” James demands. “Did you make it as a _thanks for everything, I’ll be dead soon_ gift?”

“I…” she trails off, unsure of how to answer.

“Did you give Pepper Stark Industries because you knew you were dying, and you were succession planning?” he asks, his voice liberally lined with disgust.

“I…”

“For fuck’s sake, Toni, I know _talking_ is an issue with you, but you saying something right about now would be really fucking helpful,” James says, sourly.

“Yeah,” Toni says, suddenly, the words coming out of her like she’s pulling teeth from her jaw. “Yeah, that’s why I made you the arm. I had always intended to make it for you, but I’d put it off and off, and then, I realised I’d never have a better chance than this ever again.”

“So, all that shit about wanting to erase the fact that HYDRA had ever had me, that was what…?” James asks, lip curling up sharply. “A fucking lie?”

“No, no, it wasn’t,” Toni says, hurriedly, stepping forward, her stomach twisting when he takes a step back, when he actively tries to get away from her. “Yasha, that’s exactly why I decided to build the arm. All the palladium poisoning did was speed up my timeline, but it was never meant to be anything else, I _swear_.”

“You didn’t tell me, Toni,” he says, roughly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t fucking tell me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want…” Toni trails off, biting at her lower lip. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“Like that? Like what?”

“All decaying and shit,” Toni snaps, her hands fidgeting at her sides. “I didn’t want you to see as I deteriorated, okay? That wasn’t something you should have to see. I thought, if you didn’t know, if I’d just died, well, tehn, it would be a mercy. It would be easier for you to get over, instead of having to watch and wait as I got sicker and sicker, and finally, kicked the bucket. I didn’t want…”

“You didn’t want me to mourn for very long,” James realises, staring at her with unfathomable, pale eyes.

Toni waits a moment before nodding in resignation.

“Do you realise how fucked up that is?” James demands. “Did you think I wouldn’t… that I wouldn’t mourn you? Is that what you think? Did you think I wouldn’t cry and miss you and get angry and just… what, I’d just move on? Is that what you wanted, for me to move on?”

“No, yes, well…” Toni bites her lip. “Look, I was just trying to spare you some grief. I just wanted you to… I wanted you to move on, I wanted you to grieve for a little while and then, just move on, just live your life. I didn’t want you wasting your life thinking about your poor, dead soulmate, didn’t want you living with me as your hanging shadow. I wanted you to be _happy_ , Yasha. Is that really bad? I just wanted you to be happy, and I wanted to spend these… these last few months of mine being _happy_ with you. I didn’t want that ruined by me being sick-”

“It wouldn’t have been _ruined_ ,” James snaps. “I would’ve _known_ , Toni. I would’ve known that you were in trouble, that you weren’t well. I could’ve helped you through all of that, and we wouldn’t be standing here, at the end of everything, at the end of your life, arguing, because there wouldn’t be an argument.” He closes his eyes, tightly, fists curling at his sides as well, and then he opens them, like he’s forcing himself to remain calm. “I could’ve made you happy, even while I knew, even while you were dying. I could’ve made you happy.”

“You _have_ made me happy,” Toni insists, half-desperate and wild, clutching at his face. “You have, and I’m sorry if me not telling you makes you think that you didn’t. _You did_ , Yasha. Look, I thought… I was just trying to protect you. I wanted to protect you from all that grief. I just… I thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted you to remember me like you’d always known me, not the sick little thing I’d be before I died.”

“I love you all the ways, Toni,” James says, with a passion that borders on madness. “I love you, no matter whether you’re healthy or sick, I love you. So, don’t you dare come at me with this ridiculous idea that I might think less of you, or I might not want you anymore-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Toni says, fiercely.

“You don’t trust me,” James says, finally. “That’s what this comes down to. You don’t fucking trust me to tell me these things, these awful, important things about your life. You didn’t tell me about the Ten Rings, how you got away from them, and you didn’t tell me about the Iron Woman armour, and you didn’t tell me about Gulmira, and you didn’t tell me about being sick. Because you don’t trust me.” He swallows hard. “Is it because…” he closes his eyes, like the thought is too painful to even consider. “Is it because once upon a time, I was the Winter Soldier and I owned you as much as HYDRA ever did?”

Toni feels her face slacken in surprise. “What?” she says, almost breathlessly.

“Is this because, in your eyes, at some point in your life, I was a villain in your story, and not your love interest? Is that why there is that fundamental part of you that is unable to trust me with this sort of information, because you think I will use it against you?”

Toni just gapes at him in disbelief, unable to say anything, no words springing off her tongue.

For a long, terrible second, she isn’t able to answer, and he takes her silence as affirmation of all the horrible things he’d just said. His face crumples, so quickly and so painfully, and he nods to himself, steeling against the pain that the affirmation brings.

“Oh, okay,” he says, quietly, and turns to leave.

“No,” she blurts out and lunges forward, fear climbing in her chest, black and frightful, the fear that if she lets him go, he’ll never come back, he’ll never come home, and she can’t bear that; she can bear many things, but she can’t bear that. “No, don’t go, don’t… please, Yasha, listen to me, listen, I just…”

“Toni,” James says, shaking his head. “Toni, maybe there’s no point.”

“I love you,” she says, stubbornly, gripping him by the jaw. “I love you, I’m in love with you. You think… you think I’ve been looking at you and seeing this monster I’ve just been repressing in my memories, that I don’t trust you. I _love_ you; there is nothing I love more in this world than I love you. That probably sounds like just words to you, when I haven’t told you… _anything_ about what’s happening to me. It’s my fault. I did this, I did this to us.”

James’ hands settle around her waist, on the slight curve to her hips, steady and firm.

“I don’t think of you like that at all,” she says, determinedly, her pulse a heavy thud. “I trust you, I do. I really do, Yasha. I’m just-”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the arc reactor?” James grits out.

“Because I was scared,” Toni says, weakly. “Maybe you think I’m just selfish and vain, but I… I didn’t age, Yasha. I’m forty years old, and I haven’t aged. I still look like I’m twenty-five. You don’t look a day over thirty. It works for us. People, when they see us, they say we look good together-”

James scowls. “What does this have to do with-”

“Wait, wait, I’m getting to it. I just… Yasha, you have always looked at me like I was strong, like I was competent, like I could take care of myself. If I’d told you that I was dying, that this thing in my chest is poisoning my blood, you would have looked at me differently. You would have looked at me and seen something you needed to protect, not someone you could stand and fight beside. I would’ve become a burden to you. I would’ve become something that you would’ve pitied. I didn’t want you to think less of me. I just wanted… I wanted you to look at me like you’ve always looked at me. I wanted to die and have you look at me just like that, no difference, nothing less.”

She stares at him, open and vulnerable and delicate, the pain shadowing her eyes, her heart pounding against her ribcage and the arc reactor, as she waits, just waits, as he considers everything she said, everything that she just put on the table, all those insecurities, those terrifying, troubling, vain things she’d just confessed to.

James just stares at her.

He reaches out and takes her by the shoulders, smoothing up to cup her jaw and neck, smoothing over the pulse point there.

“You can’t keep these things from me ever again,” he tells her, the words parsed out in careful measure. “I don’t want to have this argument with you ever again. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I do, I do, Yasha,” she says, hurriedly.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Toni flinches and forces herself to recover quickly – if that’s what he needs to say to her, she’ll take it, she’ll take it and more, because she’s done this, she’s done this to him, she’s hurt him like this, so she’s owed this.

“I’m not going to have this argument with you ever again,” he tells her, and she knows he can feel the heavy thud of her pulse under his palm. “I won’t do it. If you lie to me again-”

“I won’t, _I won’t_ , Yasha.”

James offers her a half-smile and brushes her hair out of her eyes. “This is my line with you, Antonia,” he says, using her full name for the first time in so long. “Don’t cross it again, or I don’t know what will happen with us.”

Toni nods and falls against his chest, his hand coming to cover the back of her skull, fingers in her hair, slow and twisting.

She has her lines too – the arc reactor, the Commander, the deaths on her hands – and Yasha has always respected them; this is the least she can do for him.

“And I will always look at you like that,” he murmurs, pressing his mouth to her hair. “Like you’re strong, you’re competent, you’re beautiful and fierce and you can take care of yourself. I will always fight beside you, not in front of you, not because I don’t want to, because I do, I do want to, I will always want to shield you from anything and everything, because I love you. I love you so much, more than anything. You will never be a burden to me, even if you are bedridden and needing me to change your underwear every day-”

“Oh, hell,” Toni mutters.

James laughs against her hair. “I will never pity you, because I don’t think you’re someone who could take pity without wanting to throw something at me, and I would like to avoid that at all costs. I will never think less of you, because you are everything to me. I have seen you at your worst, Toni. I have seen you murdering a man at dinner with his wife and children, and I love you for that. I love you for living and staying with me and running with me and making this life with me. I will always look at you like I look at you now, and I will always love you.”

Toni laughs after a moment, her voice coming out rough. “You’re such a sap,” she complains.

“I’m only a sap for you,” he replies, his voice fond and unbearably soft, running the flat of his hand over her hair again, the weight comforting. “Fix it,” he says, suddenly, making Toni startle in his arms. “Whatever’s wrong with the arc reactor, fix it.”

Toni pulls back. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he says, stubbornly, his eyes like two dark stones in his face.

“What, you think I haven’t tried?” Toni asks, bordering on the line of frustration. “You think I haven’t tried every possible permutation and every possible combination of every element there is existence to replace the palladium as the arc reactor’s core. It can’t be done. It can’t be saved. There is nothing left, Yasha.” She reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Either I take this arc reactor out of my body and make my death quick by severe cardiac failure in a matter of moments, or I l just let the palladium kill me, albeit slowly but surely. There are only two options here. I have chosen the latter, because it gives me more time with you. Of course, it won’t be pretty, I think. I don’t know what it’s going to be like to die like that, but I have a feeling, because I am never fucking lucky, that it’s going to be bad.”

James shakes his head. “I don’t accept that. _I don’t accept that_ , Toni,” he insists.

Toni feels her chest hurt. She reaches up, puts her hands on her cheeks, her skin scratching slightly from the short hairs of his stubble. She leans forward so she can press her forehead against his.

“Will you make love to me?” she asks, in a small voice.

“What?” James asks, pulling back, his brow creasing in concern.

“Will you make love to me?” she repeats, her voice stronger.

“I don’t… Toni, I don’t understand,” James says, unsure. “Why are you asking me this now? I mean…”

“I don’t think I have much more time,” she offers, her voice thin and taut. “I don’t… I checked my blood toxicity count this morning, and it’s around the mid 80s, which is bad, really bad, and something bad… I think I’m going to die very soon. And I know that I’ve just put all of this on you today, in the last few hours, and I’m sorry, because I have no right to be asking you for anything. I know you need to process everything that I’ve told you, and this isn’t fair, this isn’t fair to you at all. But I just… I suppose I just want to feel close to you. I want to remember being close to you. Can you, uh, can you please make love to me?” she asks, pleading and pained.

James’ face crumples with hurt and he touches her cheek. “You never have to ask me for anything,” he promises.

He lifts her up into his arms, so that she can wrap her legs around his waist, even if she doesn’t need the leverage. He lifts her up and he carries her up the stairs to their bedroom and lays her out on the bed and crawls on top of her.

She sighs and reaches for him, draping her arms around his shoulders. She drags him down so the full, broad weight of him on top of her. Her legs spread, and she stares at him, so painfully beautiful in the frame of her thighs. Her hands slide into his hair, his long hair, touching his shoulders now, and the heels of her palms against his growing beard.

He kisses her, slow and steady and sweet, and she moans, opening her mouth underneath his. His tongue tangles with hers, and his hand slides up the inside her thigh.

His fingers, long and firm, edge under her underwear and inside her, where she’s wet and throbbing, and a finger swipes over her clit, and she wants to remember this sensation forever.

She wants to think of this when she goes into the deep for the last time and doesn’t come back out.


	17. xvii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Tony Stark/Natasha Romanoff" square (S5) for the Tony Stark Bingo 2020.

There’s a knock on the door.

Toni goes to answer it, and Nick Fury’s on the other side.

“Not interested,” she snaps at him and closes the door.

He’s fast for a person with normal speed and normal strength, and his foot lodges in the doorway before she can shut it fully.

“Too bad, I am,” he says and shoves the door open.

“What’s going on here?” James asks, bringing up the rear, at her shoulder in a minute.

She hadn’t even needed to say it, and he was already there.

“We have a problem,” Fury tells them, face hard and stoic, with his arms folded across his chest.

Toni’s gaze thins. “Aren’t you a little hot in that trench coat?” she asks.

For a long, terrible second, all she had Fury do is exchange an unblinking, unflinching stare, and then, somehow, suddenly, he abruptly deflates.

“I’m dying in this thing. You got some juice or something?” he asks, wiping at his brow, which is damp with sweat.

“Kombucha,” Toni answers instead. “We’re trying it out. We have blueberry or raspberry lemonade.”

Fury’s face twists like he thinks he’s too good for Kombucha. “Fine, raspberry lemonade.”

He walks in, and Toni shuts the door behind her.

It’s James who brings him the drink, and Fury takes it, grimacing at the taste.

“That’s much better, thank you.”

Toni stares down at him. “What are you doing here?” she asks, voice sharp, like flinders.

“I’m here to help you,” Fury replies, simply.

“Excuse me?” Toni lifts an eyebrow.

“I want to make sure you live past the next weekend, Toni,” Fury says, patiently. “That’s why I came. The lithium dioxide injection that Agent Romanoff gave you will only abate the symptoms of the palladium poisoning. You need a cure.”

“There is no cure,” Toni says, her temper boiling over. “You know what,” she begins, disdain underlining each and every word. “I am so fucking sick of people telling me I need to fix this, that I need a cure, like I don’t fucking know that, like I haven’t done everything in my power to _find_ something, anything, that will work instead of the palladium, like I _want_ to die. I _don’t_ , and I have tried everything, so if people will just leave me alone and let me die in peace, it would be much appreciated.”

Fury sighs and leans back. “What if I told you that you hadn’t tried everything?” he asks, patiently.

“I would say you’re full of shit,” Toni says, flatly.

“I’m not lying to you, Toni. What would I gain out of that?”

“Once I kick the bucket, immediate and open access to the Iron Woman armour,” Toni says, coldly.

“Over my dead body,” James says, in the exact same tone, his lip curling up sharply.

“That’s not what I want, and something tells me that the Iron Woman armour without a pilot would be kind of useless.”

“You could stick someone else in there,” she reminds him.

“Something tells me that you’ve planned for that too, and it wouldn’t work for anyone else _but_ you,” Fury points out.

“Well,” Toni sighs. “You’re not completely wrong.”

“You’re completely wrong about the fact that you think you’ve tried everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Toni asks, warily.

Fury smiles, thin and with just the slightest hint of his white teeth. “I brought you a present.”

* * *

The present turns out to be a box full of her dead father’s things, left at SHIELD decades ago.

After Fury has left, she grabs a knife, with James hovering in the background, and slices cleanly down the box’s middle, without even having to put in too much power.

She parts the cardboard and pushes it back, revealing a box full of dusty books and newsreels.

Toni takes a deep breath and pulls out the first journal, beginning to read.

She parts the cover, and the sharp scent of mothballs, something musky and dark, assaults her nose, her face scrunching up in displeasure.

Her father’s handwriting is a messy scrawl, she realises, much like hers, twisted and slanted to the left.

Funny how it’s the same, when she’d barely spent any time with the man – in some things, blood wills out.

On the last page, of the last notebook, is a diagram of a cube.

 _The Tesseract_ , it is titled at the top, in neat capital letters, underlined three times.

“What do you…” Toni takes a deep, steadying breath. “What do you remember about the Tesseract?”

James frowns, sinking down on the sofa behind her, so that she can fit in the gap between his legs, and his fingers can twist in her hair.

“Bits and pieces, why do you ask?”

“Because there’s a giant diagram of it in this journal, and it’s making my skin crawl, even if it’s just an empty diagram.”

She hands it back to James, who traces the lines of the cube with a single finger, a number of emotions casting in sharp lines across his handsome face.

“The first thing that comes to mind is that I hate this stupid, fucking thing,” he says, heavily, staring down at her, his eyes pale and distant.

Toni reaches up behind her shoulder to grip his knee, her fingers splayed out.

“The second thing that comes to mind is that HYDRA had one hell of a weapons’ stash with this thing powering them,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Toni lifts her head and she turns to face him. “The Tesseract powered the weapons?” she asks, curiously.

James nods. “They were the same colour, this eerie sort of blue, like ice, but glowing.”

Toni rests her chin on his knee. “You know, I read in the notebook that he based the plans for the arc reactor, the big one that Howard made in the 1970s on studies of the Tesseract after he fished it out of the ocean.”

James’ face twists. “He should have left it down there,” he says, disgusted.

Toni kisses his knee lightly. “If Howard based the arc reactor on readings from the Tesseract, that means this-” she taps on her arc reactor with the edge of a nail. “-is based off the Tesseract as well, albeit in miniature form.”

“What does that mean?” James asks, curiously.

“It means that the Tesseract might be the way out of this mess,” Toni muses, climbing onto the couch and curling up against his side, so that she can flip through the pages as well.

“Do you really think so?” James asks, trying very hard not to sound too hopeful lest it make her feel bad.

Toni leans forward, hand dipping into the cardboard box and pulling out a newsreel.

“Let’s figure it out,” she sighs.

* * *

“ _Everything is achievable through technology_ ,” Howard says, decades younger, with less grey in his hair, but more lines, the way that Toni remembers him as he died. “ _Better living, robust health, and for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace_.”

“Ugh,” James says, mouth thinning into a hard line. “Could he sound any more full of himself?”

Toni cups his jaw in her hand, squeezing slightly. “Your distaste for my father is very adorable,” she sighs.

James rolls his eyes. “Just… shut up and watch the movie.”

“Movie,” she huffs. “Movie, he calls this.”

“ _I’m Howard Stark, and everything you’ll need for the future can be found right here._ ” Howard pauses, grimacing. “ _City of the Future? City of Tomorrow? City of…_ ” He growls cutting himself off short, before pasting a thin, pale copy of a smile on his haggard face. “ _I’m Howard Stark and everything you’ll need in the future can be found right here. So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I would like to personally_ -”

Toni looks up as he swears.

“ _For fuck’s sake_ ,” Howard snarls at the man carrying the camera and stops talking, grabbing the glass of brandy balancing on the edge of the board and taking an artless swig. “ _Do… like a zoom in of the model_ ,” he instructs, his voice like a rasp.

Howard disappears out of the frame, and the camera inches closer, the perspective change to a vertical view abruptly. The footage covers the entirety of the model behind him, the fake towers and the fake parks and the fake stands of the stadium that was built to showcase Howard Stark’s greatness.

“I’ll… I’ll… I’ll come in and…” Howard says, and the video changes, cuts off abruptly, and begins again.

“Are you waiting on me?” the man on the other side of the camera asks.

Howard drinks another glass of whiskey.

The video changes again.

“ _So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I’d like to personally show you… my ass_ ,” Howard finishes with a snort of derision. “ _I’d like to…_ ” he shakes his head, cutting himself off. “ _I can’t… This is… I can’t… We have this, don’t we? This is a ridiculous way… Everything-_ ”

Toni flicks through the notebook and finds only blank pages.

He never got a chance to finish the notebook, she realises, because he’s dead now.

“- _is achievable through technology._ ”

Toni lets the book fall to the side of the couch.

“ _Toni_ ,” Howard says, on the screen, and Toni looks up, startled by the sudden use of her name. “ _Toni, I don’t…_ ” he sighs. “ _I don’t even know where you are, how you are, whether you’re alive. For all I know, you’re lying dead in a ditch somewhere, blue and cold and swollen, and no one…_ ” he clears his throat. “ _No one would find you. Everyone would just pass you by_.”

Beside her, James flinches, and her palm flattens over his knee, squeezing.

Howard’s voice cracks. “ _You’re only four, for fuck’s sake. You should, uh, you should be here with us, you should be here, helping your mom make cookies, helping me out in the workshop, but you’re not, you’re not here, and you’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I know what they say. They say that if we haven’t found you yet, we’re probably never going to find you. If Peggy could see me like this, she’d tip out all the brandy and then, where would I be_?”

Howard laughs like the rasp of a dragging chain against gravel.

“ _I built this for you_ ,” he confesses. “ _So, you’ll know that all of it, everything is completely worthless without you. And someday, you’ll realise that it represents a whole lot more than just people’s inventions. It represents my life’s work. This is the key to the future. I’m limited by the technology of my time, but one day, I am praying that you will figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world._ ” He takes a deep breath. “ _What is and always will be my greatest creation is you._ ”

Toni takes a deep, shuddering breath and stares down at her lap.

“You okay?” James asks from beside her, gently.

“He loved me,” Toni says, quietly. “He just… I don’t think he was very good at showing it.”

“He loved you,” James agrees.

“He saved my life,” Toni tells him. “In Afghanistan, threw himself over my body to protect me from the brunt of the bomb blast. They never found his body.”

James rubs her back, and she leans into the touch.

“I know,” she clears her throat. “I know you didn’t like him very much-”

“Bullshit,” James says, derisively. “Clearly, he loved you enough to save your life. I don’t really care about how much he didn’t like me anymore. The only thing that matters is that you’re here, you’re safe, that is all that matters to me.”

Toni drags her hand over her face. “He mourned me, even when I was gone, even where there was no evidence that I’d survived, or that I was alive somewhere.” She takes a deep, steadying breath. “Okay, I’m just gonna… I’m gonna turn the newsreel back to the beginning, see if I missed anything.”

“Okay,” James says, ever supportive.

She starts the newsreel from the beginning, watches Howard drink himself in grief, and then, the camera runs over the model of the Stark Expo. It lingers on the globe in the centre, the circle that surrounds it, and the air in her chest grows tight.

She almost trips over her own feet in an attempt to pause the newsreel at that particular frame.

“What’s going on?” James asks, sitting up.

She stares at the globe.

“Oh, my God,” she says, breathlessly.

And then, she runs down to the workshop.

* * *

“J?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia?”

“Do you by any chance have any plans in your systems to do with the 1974 Stark Expo model?” Toni asks, curiously.

“Not normally, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, apologetically. “But upon your father’s death, I took the liberty of infiltrating into the storage facility that was operated under your father’s name in upstate New York. I did take a series of images of the contents that are in that storage facility.”

“Does that storage facility somehow contain the model that I’m looking for?” she asks.

“Fortunately, yes.”

Toni pumps her fist.

“Are you able to get me a manipulatable projection?”

After a moment, JARVIS replies, “1974 Stark Expo model scan complete, miss.”

And it bursts into view in a horizontal line, so that she can peer over it. She lifts the first layer off the model and turns it onto a vertical axis so that she can see it right in front of her.

“How many buildings are there?”

“Am I to include the Belgium waffle stands?” JARVIS asks, dryly.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Must you?” she complains.

“I get my kicks where I can, Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, apologetically.

“Well, it was rhetorical. Just show me.”

She snaps her fingers, and the thin hologram begins to spin and lift upright.

“What does that look like to you, JARVIS?” she asks, pointing at the centre circle, where the globe sits. “Not unlike an atom,” she muses. “In which case, the nucleus would be _here_.” She points at the centre of the circle. “Highlight the unisphere. Lose the footpaths. Get rid of them.”

She bats them away like flies, until all she’s stuck with is the circle.

“What is it you’re trying to achieve, miss?” JARVIS asks, curiously.

“I’m discovering…” she narrows her eyes. “Correction, I’m _rediscovering_ a new element, I believe.” She watches it, carefully. “Lose the landscaping, the shrubbery, the trees.” She flicks them all away. “Parking lots, exits, entrances. Structure the protons and the neutrons using the pavilions as a framework.”

Toni breathes, breathes well and full, when the model now resembles a nucleus, with all the protons and neutrons, and she clenches her hands tight, clasps them together, and bursts them apart, stretching as far as her arms will stretch, and the model expands with her.

She’s smiling, she realises, touching the edge of her mouth, realising that all the muscles there in her face are hurting, and it’s touching her eyes, and she must have smiled like this before, right? She must have smiled like this before.

“Miss Antonia?” JARVIS asks, so unbearably soft.

“My father has been dead for two years now, and he’s taking me to school for the very first time,” she muses and starts laughing, giggling even, almost hysterically and desperate.

She reaches out with her hand, curls it around the hologram, pulling it down and make it smaller until it fits in the palm of her hand, and she can stare at it with all the awe she can muster.

“The proposed element should serve as a viable replacement for palladium,” JARVIS offers.

Toni stares at it. “Thank you, Dad.”

“Unfortunately,” JARVIS says, apologetically. “It is impossible to synthesise.”

Toni sighs. “Impossible just turns me on.”

“I did not need to know that,” JARVIS huffs.

Toni turns around to the bots, who circle her like stands in a colosseum. “Get ready for a major remodel, babies. We’re back in hardware mode.”

* * *

“Toni, Toni!”

Toni peers back around the doorframe. “Yes?” she says, innocently.

James offers her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Where are you going with that?” he asks, pointing at the sledgehammer between her hands.

“Uh,” she stares down at her. “I was just going to do some renovation?” she says, high and thin.

“No,” James says, decisively, shaking his head. “No, absolutely not, not with that.”

“But Yasha-”

“You’re not even a builder; do you even know how to use that thing?” James asks, incredulously.

Toni looks down at the sledgehammer. “I think I might have bashed some accountant’s skull in with a sledgehammer before?” she offers.

“That’s not what I _meant_!”

“Okay, look, I know you don’t like this, but I think I might have worked it out.”

“Worked what out?” James asks, annoyed.

“I might have worked out a way to save my life,” Toni says, hesitating for an agonising moment.

James just stares at her. “Seriously?” he says, flatly.

“Look, I was going to tell you, I swear,” Toni says, quickly. “But another issue was that JARVIS said that the element that I rediscovered was impossible to synthesise, so I didn’t want to tell you only to _not_ be able to synthesise the element and then, you know, ruin all your hopes, and ruin my hopes at the same time, because I want this to work. I really want this to work,” she says, in a small voice.

James takes a deep, steadying breath. “And the only way to make this work is to gouge holes in the foundation of our house?” he says, wearily.

“Well, yeah?”

“And how are we going to fix it?” James demands. “Because we both have our respective skillset and repairing houses is not one of them.”

“Oh, well, technically, I’m rich now,” Toni reminds him. “Remember? Even after I made Pepper CEO, I am still incredibly rich, and I can afford to pay for the repairs.”

“Toni,” James groans.

“Hey,” Toni says, balancing the sledgehammer against the wall and walking over to him. “Look, I really think this can work.”

“Really?” James says, dubiously.

“Yasha, I wouldn’t have even picked up the sledgehammer if I wasn’t really pretty sure that this is going to work, that this might actually be able to fix me,” she says, patiently, cradling his face in her hands.

James presses her forehead against hers, and then he moves up to kiss her forehead. “Okay, okay, destroy the house,” he huffs. “Just make sure you’re alive at the end of it.”

“I love you,” she says, gently, and kisses him sweetly on the mouth, flouncing off with the sledgehammer thrown over hr shoulder like a plastic bag.

* * *

First, she smashes through the walls with the sledgehammer, and then, she drills holes in the floor with a jackhammer that she steals from the local building sight. She finds the internal wiring of the house and takes them to pieces, finding enough for the synthesis device, as well as pipes, plenty and plenty of pipes.

She’s surprised when Agent Coulson knocks on the door to her workshop, just as she’s finished setting up the device.

“I heard you left the house,” he comments, after she allows JARVIS to let him in. “Director Fury expected that you wouldn’t leave.”

“You mean until after I was dead, and they had to take my corpse out to be buried?” Toni lifts an eyebrow.

Agent Coulson frowns. “More along the lines of him thinking that you’d get distracted.”

“Oh, well, in any case, I left the house like three years ago; if you were supposed to stop me and keep me prisoner, clearly, you’re not very good at your job.”

“Yeah, well, I was doing some other stuff,” Coulson mutters.

“Yeah, well, me too, and it worked.”

Agent Coulson looks at her, dubiously.

“Look, douchebag,” she says, full of derision. “I am much smarter than you and everyone else that you’ve probably met in your life. Watch the way you look at me, with that condescending, patronising bullshit in your eyes. I won’t ask you twice.”

Agent Coulson lifts his hands in the hair. “Fine.” He peers into Howard’s box and pulls out a plastic shield.

Toni looks away.

That stupid shield had been the cause of many a nightmare of James, the last few days, even if he’d held it close to his chest and hadn’t been willing to speak of it to her, so certain that she had enough to deal with, instead of having to deal with his trauma at the same time.

After all this time, he still didn’t understand that she would gladly take all of his burdens on top of hers if it meant that he would feel better.

“What’s this doing here?” he asks, curiously.

Toni makes grabby hands for it. “That’s it, bring that to me,” she orders.

Agent Coulson approaches her like one would a skittish deer. “You know what this is?” he asks, carefully.

Toni gives him a belligerent, disbelieving look. “Of course I know what it is. Do you think I care right now?”

Agent Coulson flushes. “I just thought-”

“You thought that considering I was soulmated to Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s right-hand man, and my father was Howard Stark, who helped out in Project Rebirth, and my godmother and one of my favourite persons in this stupid universe was Margaret Carter, who was Captain America’s love interest during the war, I would get, what, turned on by any mention or any cameo to do with him,” she says, bluntly.

“I didn’t mean-”

“Right now, it’s what I need to make this work.”

She stretches out her hand for it, taking it from him. She slides a hand under the metal coil, and she lifts it up, the muscles in her arm flexing. While she has it at a sufficient height, she slides the plastic shield underneath. When it drops down, she smiles.

“There we go,” she says, satisfied. “Perfectively level. I’m busy. What do you want?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to let you know that Director Fury has called me off your case,” Coulson explains.

“I didn’t even know you were on my case,” Toni says, simply.

“It seems as though you don’t need our help anymore.”

Toni cracks a smile. “Thank you,” she says, genuinely. “Pass that onto Fury, would you? For giving me my dead father’s things that SHIELD apparently had in their possession for two years after he died, even though my mother is his legal heir and owner of all of his possessions now.”

Agent Coulson gives her a bland smile. “Will do. I’ve been reassigned. Director Fury wants me in New Mexico.”

“Fantastic, Land of Enchantment,” she says, her tone absent.

“So, I’m told.”

“Secret stuff?” Toni peers at him, carefully.

“Something like that. Good luck.”

They shake hands.

“We do need you, Toni,” he tells her, solemnly.

“I know,” Toni says. “But I don’t want to be needed.”

Agent Coulson watches her with an even, studious gaze. “You might not have a choice.”

Toni looks down at the coil, running her hands over it. “You know what the good thing about escaping a fascist, murdering, Nazi organisation that brainwashes you and tortures you and conditions you into obeying everything they say? It means, once you escape that organisation, you get ready ragey about the choices you have. Specifically, it means you don’t like any sort of assertion that you don’t have a choice. I _always_ have a choice, Phil. You’ll just have to wait and see what my choices are.”

Coulson inclines his head and leaves, and Toni’s alone, she’s alone with the thing that might save her life.

“Go ahead, J,” she sighs.

“Initialising prismatic accelerator,” JARVIS intones.

Toni turns the wheel on top of the coil.

A bolt shoots out of the device.

Toni keeps turning.

“Approaching maximum power.”

Toni turns the wheel again, and as she does it, the bolt cuts jagged holes in the wall. She knocks down a bookshelf, and then cuts cleanly a table in half, and the bots squeal in fright in the background, but she keeps going, keeps turning.

Eventually, the bolt hits the arc reactor core mounted on a nearby table.

She waits, and then, the arc reactor beats, glowing a strange, eerie blue, like the colour of starlight.

“That was easy,” she comments, as she switches off the device and stretches like a cat, pleasantly.

The bots screech at her from behind.

She rounds on them.

“I was trying to save my life; do you have a problem with that?” she asks, belligerently, folding her arms over her chest.

The bots pout something fierce.

“Look, I know I knocked over a bookcase or two, but that’s what you guys are here for!” she says, cheerfully. “You like cleaning up!”

The bots just scowl, and DUM-E is the first to roll forward, a broom between his claw, going for the first bookshelf and the wreckage strewn across the floor.

Toni rounds the synthesis device to the core made from the rediscovered element and picks it up with pliers. She neatly and carefully places it within the arc reactor’s casing, and waits, as the arc reactor beats and breathes, and finally, there’s soft, shrill sound, indicating that the arc reactor has accepted the modified core.

“Congratulations, miss. You have created a new element,” JARVIS says, satisfied on her behalf.

Toni hefts the weight of the reactor in the palm of her hand and she peers at it, the core, feeling the beat of its synthetic heart between her fingers.

“Thank you, JARVIS.”

“Miss, the reactor has accepted the modified core. I will begin running diagnostics.”

Toni shakes her head, her skin crawling quietly. “No, there’s no need.”

“Miss?”

Toni removes her shirt first, and then, she unhooks her bra, baring her breasts and the arc reactor lodged deep in her chest to the workshop. Her fingers circle the rim of the arc reactor, and she twists, the reactor coming free of its wiring at the base and in between her fingers.

It hurts, when the reactor snaps off, it hurts a lot, like sharp teeth on bare skin, biting and chewing and gouging her, and it’s almost like lead in her veins, turning her slow and sluggish and the blood pounding in her ears.

She stares at the new arc reactor with the new core, and before she lingers too much on it, she slides the new arc reactor.

“Miss Antonia!” JARVIS shouts.

It connects with the base with a shrill click, and Toni gasps, wrenching forward, her knees like jelly. The heat of the reactor replaces blood in her veins, and she shudders from the sensation, as it bleeds through, grinding into her molars; it’s everywhere, in her mouth and her throat and her ears and her eyes, and it tastes like coconut.

It tastes like coconut.

She starts laughing, and then, she’s wheezing, and she’s sinking into a nearby chair, clutching onto her workstation for dear life.

“JARVIS?”

“Your vitals have stabilised,” he says, gently, so unbearably soft. “You are no longer in cardiac arrest. Your heart rate has slowed to an acceptable rhythm with your particular biological peculiarities. There are no toxins moving from the arc reactor into your body. The slow poisoning has stopped. In a few days, your body, along with the serum that you share with Sergeant Barnes, should rid itself of the palladium.”

Toni swallows hard. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

* * *

Three days later, Toni sits on the edge of bed, with James on one side, Maria on the other, their hands in hers, with Sharon and Pepper at the door.

The blood toxicity measuring device sits on her lap, and she pricks her finger.

The device beeps three times in succession, before a number flashes on the device.

 _Blood Toxicity Level: 45%_.

She starts crying, a deep, heavy well of tears that fall down her face, smearing against her neck.

“Fuck,” James curses and wraps an arm around her, clutching at her tight, pulling her against him, so he can thread his fingers through her hair.

She gives up on all dignity and climbs into his lap, collapsing in a fit of loose hair and sobbing against his shoulder.

He holds her hard enough to bruise, rocking them back and forth, while Maria rubs at her back, while Pepper and Sharon kneel in front of her and grasp at her hands, brows creased in concern.

She’s going to live. She’s going to live. _She’s going to live_.

* * *

There’s a knock on the door.

Toni looks up from DUM-E, who’s still chattering to her in his robot speak, while she tightens the bolts on his strut.

“Now,” she sighs. “Who could that be?” she asks DUM-E.

DUM-E simply whirls his strut about like a shrug, complaining when she gets up.

“I have to go and answer the door,” she chides, gently, running her hand over his strut. “It’s impolite to leave a person waiting at the door like that.”

She walks away from DUM-E, even as his complaints rise in pitch, making her way out of the workshop and into the lounge, towards the front door.

She peers through the little gilded hole in the centre of the door and recognises a head of bright red hair.

“Hello, Natalia,” she says, with a bright, toothy smile, as she swings open the door.

Natasha’s face twists. “It’s Natasha,” she says, sternly.

“Do you really want me to call you that?” she asks, genuinely, leaning her body against the doorframe. “I can, if you want me to. I know better than most the emotion behind choosing a name for yourself, after being addressed by _girl_ or by a title or by a serial number. But only if you want me to.”

A number of emotions war across Natasha’s face. “Somehow,” she begins, grudgingly. “I find it comforting that there is someone who knew me before, before everything, before SHIELD, and calls me Natalia. It’s the name my parents gave me.”

“Then, I’ll keep calling you _Natalia_.” Toni folds her arms across her chest. “So, why are you here?”

“I just wanted to check on you,” Natasha says, honestly. “Director Fury told me that… well, the palladium poisoning had sorted itself out. I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

Toni taps on her arc reactor with the blunt force of her knuckles. “New core and everything.”

“So, you’re not dying then?” Natasha clarifies.

“I’m not dying,” Toni agrees.

“Your soulmate must be very happy.”

“He is. He’s very happy.”

Natasha nods, scuffing her foot against the porch, awkwardly.

Toni thinks that Natasha is very rarely awkward; she isn’t built to be awkward, isn’t made to be awkward; she is a less acclimatised version of Toni and James, who always has a word, a sentence, a quip, a joke, a tease to make to change the situation, to draw power back to her side.

Toni and James used to be like that, able to slip into someone else’s skin as easy as breathing, even if their true self wasn’t quite human, just skin and bone. They used to be so good at it, so efficient, so valuable for this power, this power to become anyone, everyone and just smile.

Toni shed that power a long time ago.

In her heart, in her ribs, she still feels like she’s stealing someone’s place, the Antonia Stark that never got a chance to live, but now, after all of this, when Maria holds her hand, she realises that she is, she is Antonia Stark, she is the only Antonia Stark that there will be in this world.

She wonders if Natasha will shed it too, become Natasha Romanoff and stay as Natasha Romanoff; maybe she doesn’t want to, maybe it has to be her choice to stay like this, as Toni once chose not to stay like that.

“Would you like to come inside?”

Natasha’s eyes flicker up, surprised.

She wasn’t expecting an invitation; she was expecting to get thrown out onto the sidewalk on her ass.

Toni has had enough of running, looking over her shoulder, wanting to burn everything that reminds her of a different life that isn’t hers anymore.

If the Commander showed up on her doorstep, even if she knows he’s dead, but she knows in her life, death is not the singular end of everything, she would shoot him in the head; if any HYDRA pig showed up on her doorstep, she would cut their eyes out of their skull.

But she won’t hide anymore.

“Come inside, Natalia,” she coaxes, stepping aside.


	18. xviii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: polyamory negotiations, explicit sexual content, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced indecent assault, implied/referenced forced reproduction.

James comes home to find Natasha and Toni sitting at a dining table with Pepper, two bottles of wine empty and a third on the way.

“What’s going on here?” he asks, putting his backpack down by the entrance to the lounge.

“We’re having wine,” Toni declares. She hands him her glass, which is around half-full. “Drink.”

James shrugs and drinks. “I was talking about the SHIELD agent at our dining table. Are we friends now?”

Toni looks at Natasha. “We’re friends now.”

* * *

Natasha becomes a stable presence in Toni and James’ house.

She’s there for dinner, for breakfast, for nights watching the _Real Housewives_ , for movies and drinking and relaxing with cinnamon buns and books on the couch.

Suddenly, she’s there all the time.

Suddenly, Toni can’t imagine her home, her warm, nice home in the middle of suburbia, without Natasha Romanoff.

And one night in bed, she tells James that she really wants to kiss her.

“Okay,” James says.

Toni chokes and turns onto her side. “Okay?” she says, gaping at him in disbelief. “That’s all you have to say. _Okay_?”

“Is that not what you wanted me to say?” James asks, confused, turning to face her.

“I was expecting some jealousy,” she admits. “I was expecting you to, I don’t know, growl and roar and fuck me into the bed, stake your claim, something along those lines.”

“I could still do that, if you’d like,” he offers.

“No, no, it wouldn’t be the same,” Toni huffs, landing back to staring at the ceiling. “So, you’re okay with that?” she broaches, carefully. “You’re okay with me wanting to kiss Natalia, the girl that we trained in the Red Room?”

James shrugs. “She’s not the girl we trained in the Red Room anymore. She hasn’t been in a very long time,” he points out. “She’s a grown adult.” He pauses. “Are you only _thinking_ about kissing her, or would you actually like to do it?”

Toni bites her lip, a flush of shame quickly overtaking her face.

James pokes her in the ribs, making her squeak. “Oh, come on, I know that face,” he scoffs. “That’s the face you make when I tell you how much I want to lick your pussy.”

The flush grows hotter.

“Can you not?” she complains.

“But it’s true,” he chuckles. “So, what do you think, huh? Do you want to kiss her, or do you want to think about kissing her?”

“I want to kiss her,” she says, in a low, rushed voice, before she loses her nerve, before the shame stops her tongue from working.

“Okay,” James replies, easily.

“What about you?” Toni asks, hesitating for an agonising moment before the question leaves her mouth.

“What about me?” James asks, confused.

“Do you want to kiss her, or is it only me?” Toni asks, pointedly.

“Oh,” James says, surprised. “You know, I’ve never really given it much thought,” he muses.

“Seriously?” she says, dubiously.

“Well, yeah,” James shrugs. “I remember…” he pauses. “I remember that I used to be a bit of a… well, I was a lady-killer back in the day, back before… well, HYDRA, and you’re the first and only person I’ve slept with since HYDRA got their hands on me. Frankly, I don’t really think about sex beyond having sex with you, so, yeah, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Oh,” Toni says, lamely. “Do you want to think about it now?”

“Think about kissing Natasha?” James clarifies.

Toni nods, warily.

“Oh, okay,” James says and closes his eyes.

Toni smacks him on the arm, and James starts laughing, loud and full, his entire body shaking.

“Sorry, sorry,” he wheezes.

“Well,” she pushes.

“Oh, well, yeah, I think it would be nice, yeah,” he says.

“Are you sure?”

“Toni,” James sighs. “Do you want to kiss Nat? Are you asking my permission for that? Is that what this is?”

“Would it terribly bother you?” she asks, almost afraid, because what person, what person asks if they can kiss someone who isn’t their soulmate, what person isn’t content in their relationship with the person whose name has been written across their body since birth.

James takes a deep breath. “Well, look, the way I see it is I wouldn’t mind kissing Natasha, but I honestly don’t think I could have sex with her or be in a relationship with her,” he says, honestly. “I like her, I like her a lot, but… sometimes I think that HYDRA ruined that part of me. I told you, I don’t really think about having sex if it isn’t with you. There isn’t really a place for another person in that part of my life.”

Toni nods, processing that.

“Okay,” she says.

“So, you want to kiss Nat, and you’re asking my permission to do that?” James clarifies.

Toni nods, hesitantly.

“Okay,” James says and breathes.

Toni curls her fingers around his wrist, angling her entire body so that she can fit against him like a puzzle piece. “I love you,” she says, pathetically earnest, almost as if she thinks he might have forgotten, because she’s doing this to them. “I love you like I love nothing else in this world. I… I didn’t know what love was until I met you. So, yeah, I don’t know if I’m capable of loving anyone else the way I love you. But I do want to see, I do want to kiss Natasha. I wouldn’t even say this to you if-”

“-if you weren’t thinking about something serious,” James says, heavily. “I understand, and you know that I’d give you whatever you want, if I could give it to you.”

“Don’t give it to me because I want it,” Toni says, severely. “Don’t… do things that make you uncomfortable because I want you to do them. That’s not… that’s not love, Yasha. That’s not what I want our love to be. Don’t… don’t say you’re okay with me kissing Natasha if you’re not okay with it. I would never do anything that hurt you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” James sighs, throwing an arm around her waist to draw her in. “I just… I am fine with it, with you kissing Nat. I am not agreeing to anything because I love you or because I think you’ll, I don’t know, leave me or something. I wouldn’t… I only tell you the truth, and I only tell you what I think, and I never spare your feelings, I never tell you what you want to hear. So, yeah, when I say I’m okay with you kissing Nat, I’m okay with you kissing Nat. Do I want to kiss Nat? Sure. But I don’t want to have sex with her. Do _you_ want to have sex with her?”

“I have thought about it, yes.”

“Then, you should have sex with her,” James says, shrugging.

“And you’re okay with that?” Toni says, sceptically. “You are the jealous type. I know that. I’ve seen it.”

“I might not have been okay with that if Natasha was a guy,” James says, honestly.

“So, you’re okay with me having sex with another woman, just… not another guy?” Toni clarifies.

James pauses. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“So, what, you’re not threatened by a woman, but you are threatened by a man?”

“I am not threatened by anyone,” James huffs.

“But somehow you find women less threatening,” Toni guesses, narrowing her eyes. “I feel like I should be insulted by that.”

James shrugs again. “I can deal with that.”

“Okay, so to clarify this conversation, you are okay with me having sex with Natasha?” Toni asks.

“I am okay with you having sex with Natasha.”

“And you understand that you are free to change your mind if you no longer feel okay with me having sex with Natasha,” she tells him.

“I understand that I am free to change my mind if I no longer feel okay with you have sex with Natasha,” he agrees.

“And you don’t want to be there?”

“I can be there if you want me to, and if Natasha is okay with me being there, but I also am in no rush to see you in the throes of passion with someone who isn’t me.”

“See, that makes me think that you don’t actually want me to do this,” Toni says, slyly.

“Well, that’s not what I’m saying,” James says, sternly.

“Are you absolutely sure, because-”

“For fuck’s sake, Toni, will you please just call Natasha up and ask her if she would have sex with you, because I literally cannot take this conversation anymore. I already told that I am fine with it. No, I am not saying that to make you feel better. I am fine with it.”

Toni cradles his jaw in her hand. “You’re sure?” she asks in a small voice.

James curls a hand around the back of her skull, his fingers sliding into her hair. “I am sure.”

* * *

“So, I was thinking, and please, feel free to tell me no if you want, but I was wondering if you would like to have sex with me,” she says, bluntly.

Natasha just sits there, the knife stilling in her hand from where she was cutting the tomatoes. “Oh,” she says, lamely, staring at her, blinking owlishly.

“I mean, only if you want to,” she says, in a low, rushed voice. “And please don’t feel like you have to if you don’t want to; it’s just… it’s just an offer.”

“Why?” Natasha asks, with a suspicious edge to her voice.

“I am attracted to you,” Toni says, simply, letting her tongue wrap around the words. “I am actually very attracted to you. I think it’s something that’s been building for a while now, but, um, yeah, ever since you came back into my life, my feelings for you started to change. So, yeah, I am attracted to you, and I would like to have sex with you.”

“You have a soulmate,” Natasha reminds her, coldly.

“I do,” Toni agrees without flinching. “And I’ve had the conversation with Yasha. He’s okay with me having sex with you, subject to your agreement, of course. He has no problem with it.”

“My understanding is that people are usually possessive over their soulmates, so why would James agree to you having sex with me? He doesn’t even like me,” Natasha points out.

“I don’t know who told you that, but it is not true,” Toni says, firmly. “He does like you; he does like you very much. He doesn’t want to have sex with you himself-”

Natasha bares her teeth in offence, as if she never properly comprehended the fact that someone, especially a man, wouldn’t want to have sex with her.

Maybe it’s an unfortunate consequence of being treated like a piece of meat by the male species since they were old enough to grow breasts and be treated like a woman, because Toni acts that way as well – it’s not a vain thing, at least, that’s what she thinks; it’s more of a _I’ve been treated like shit by men my entire life and I have just gotten used to expecting it from every man I meet_.

Toni was the exact same way; the only difference is that she has James, and she’s had him for a long time.

She thinks Natasha is heavily attached to Clint Barton, who saved her and turned her, but maybe she needs a few more years to trust in his goodness, the way she trusts in James’ goodness.

“-but he’s very much okay with me having sex with you.”

“So, what happens after this hypothetical sex?” Natasha asks, carefully. “We go back to being friends. _Are_ we friends, Toni? Is that what we’re doing here? I always thought, like your soulmate, you didn’t like me very much.”

“I was upset when I saw you again,” Toni says, honestly. “I am a bit of a coward when it comes to the old life I led, and I don’t trust easily. I don’t trust SHIELD. I will say that openly. I haven’t trusted SHIELD ever since my godmother stepped down as Director. The only reason I did anything with SHIELD was because of her; the only reason I stepped in with you was because of her. I owed her… everything, my home, my safety, my sanity, all of it. So… yeah, I don’t trust SHIELD in its present form. And you… you are problematic.”

“You are really not convincing me to have sex with you,” Natasha points out.

“I shouldn’t have to convince you to have sex with me,” Toni says, confused. “It’s either yes or no, and whichever it is, I will respect your decision. No, I was just trying to give you some context, especially since you’re clearly operating under the misunderstanding that I don’t like you very much. I do like you. I wouldn’t have proposed having sex with you if I didn’t like you. So, what do you say?”

“To you liking me?” Natasha asks, with a furrowed brow.

“No, I mean, to you wanting to have sex with me? Do you want to have sex with me?” Toni asks, plainly.

Natasha leans back in her chair, as if this is the first time that she’s giving it serious thought. Her pale green eyes drag over Toni, not in the clinical way that one might looking at a slice of meat, but in the lustful way that someone might if they were imagining her on spread out on a table, with her skirt hiked up to her hips, so they can see her soft, round thighs, a hint of pink between her legs.

“Okay,” she says, finally.

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes, I’ll have sex with you.” Natasha pauses, looking thoughtful. “I’ve never had sex with a woman before. Have you?”

Toni shrugs. “A couple of times. You know, HYDRA started off as a Nazi organisation, and they kept a lot of those conservative values, but whoring me out to important female political targets who can’t be interested in women in public, well, that was not above their old-school conservatism.”

“So, you’d know what you’re doing?” Natasha says, carefully.

Toni leans forward, hand on her palm, staring at Natasha through the dip of her eyelashes. “I will take such good care of you,” she promises.

Much to her surprise, Natasha’s face flames. “So, how do you want to do this? Do you want to do it right now or…?”

“Whenever you want,” Toni says, stretching her hands out.

* * *

She and Natasha plan it out, and she goes back to James, double-checking that he’s still okay for her to do this. They decide to have sex one night, not in Toni and James’ shared king-size bed upstairs, but in the guest room downstairs, in the queen bed.

At first, she had thought Natasha might find that disrespectful, that Toni might just treat this as some dirty little secret, her as some cheap sex, but Natasha herself was awkward enough with the possibility of having sex in the bed Toni shared with her soulmate, at least for the first time that they would do this.

Natasha perches herself on the edge of the bed, and Toni towers over her, with her insignificant height. She plants her hands on Natasha’s shoulders and pushes her down, crawling on top of her with all of her weight.

“I’m stronger than you,” she reminds her. “A lot stronger than you. I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to, though. And if I lose control of my strength, please tell me. This is all about pleasure, not about pain, unless that’s your thing.”

Natasha’s mouth twists in displeasure. “Not my thing.”

“Not mine, either,” Toni replies, easily. “I can be a huge fan of rough sex, but I don’t want this, tonight, to be about that.”

Natasha’s mouth flickers with a smile. “Okay,” she says, softly.

Toni offers her a smile in return. “Would you mind if I kissed you?” she asks, solemnly.

Natasha blinks up at her, slow and steady, and then, nods.

Toni leans down and very carefully, she slides a hand around the nape of her neck, slanting her mouth over Natasha’s with sufficient force. Natasha gasps a little at the sensation, a woman’s mouth under hers very different to a man’s, and Toni’s grip on her neck tightens, her fingers sliding into Natasha’s dark auburn hair.

Toni leans one knee onto the bed, and Natasha goes down onto her back, allowing Toni to crawl all over her, her knees on either side of her hips. Toni brushes her hair out of her face, tucks it behind her ears, and leans down, kissing her again, deep and filthy, until Natasha is clutching at her and moaning.

Her hands move down from Natasha’s hair to the long, elegant line of her neck, to the swoop of her shirt, the low dip designed to show enough of her breasts that people get distracted, can’t pay attention to what she’s doing with those quick little fingers of hers.

Toni doesn’t linger that long there, just traces the neckline with the edge of a nail, before trailing around the curves of her breasts, down to the hem of the shirt, which she rolls up slowly. Natasha lifts her arms so that Toni can take it off her, leaving her in a simple, white bra, with only a hint of lace, one not meant for seduction, more for practicality than anything.

Natasha is much heavier in the chest area than she is, Toni realises, a lot curvier than she is. Natasha had the benefit of good meals and the understanding of her captors that healthy assets mean effective, efficient missions, whereas HYDRA had wilfully ignored that their assets required food and water to continue existing.

“Can I take off your jeans?”

Natasha lifts her hips, invitingly, and Toni goes straight for the button, pulling it from its hole, and sliding down the rough, golden zipper. Toni pulls the tight pair of jeans down her legs, tugging it off her feet, noticing that her underwear is white cotton, the same shade as her bra, and somehow, the fact that Natasha is not wearing satin or silk or lace underneath serves to make this a better experience than she thought it would.

“Underwear?” Toni arches an eyebrow.

Natasha just waggles her eyebrows.

Toni grins and hooks two fingers on either side of the band, rolling it down slowly. She’s surprised to find that Natasha is shaven bare between her legs, and for a moment, she wonders if she should be shamefaced that she doesn’t, nothing more than a neat trim, because James has never minded much where body hair is concerned, considering he knows that up until a decade or so ago, she never had the opportunity to actually shave.

“Now, you’ve got my clothes off,” Natasha sighs, wiggling her toes, and she plants her feet on the mattress, spreading herself so that Toni can see the pink between her legs. “What about you? I really hope you weren’t just planning for this to be totally one-sided.”

Toni beams down at her. With one swoop, her shirt and jeans join the floor. She isn’t wearing a bra, herself – she has a tradition of losing the thing after four in the afternoon each day – and her underwear is a scrap of lace in an attempt to dress up for this.

Natasha runs her tongue over her upper lip, sweat beading there, her eyes latched on her throat and the swell of her breasts, her nipples dark where Natasha’s are pink as berries.

Toni smiles slow, like a honey drip, and she hooks two fingers in her underwear, pulling it down her thighs until it’s pooling around her ankles and she can kick it away.

Natasha’s eyes drag down from her breasts to her cunt, the thatch of dark curly hair there, between her thighs, and she blinks.

“I don’t shave much,” she says, awkwardly, wondering if she should be embarrassed.

She’s never been in this position before.

When she was with HYDRA, she was shaved meticulously. The handlers didn’t like giving her razors for her to do the shaving herself. Whenever mission protocols involved sex, they expected her to get on one of those surgical stretchers, legs pinned and bent in the stirrups, as they shaved and waxed and oiled her underarms, her legs, her eyebrows, her upper lip, and her pubic hair.

Her marks liked her bare, and so, she was bare.

But then, she’d escaped HYDRA and with that loss, came the loss of any desire to be like what HYDRA had wanted her to be – that included the shaving, so she didn’t shave much. She shaved enough to make sure she didn’t get odd looks from people as she went outside, but it was nowhere near the maintenance that was necessary for a girl like her to sit at a bar in the middle of nowhere, sip at a cocktail, and wait for some stupid shmuck to approach her with a cheesy pick up line and the possibility of a wealth of confidential information.

“I like it,” Natasha says, softly, her eyes shining. “You look honest.”

Toni crawls on top of her and kisses her again, slants her mouth over hers with bruising force, until they’re grappling together, like this is an old dance their bodies are doing with one another, like they were always meant to do this.

Natasha’s hands are braver than hers, spanning from her shoulder, down the length of her arm, and then up her ribs, until she can palm at one breast, her thumb dragging over a nipple. Toni’s nipple hardens, tightens to a point, and Natasha pinches it between her thumb and index finger, making Toni gasp and jerk on top of her.

“Your breasts are sensitive,” Natasha comments, a curious look looming behind her eyes.

“Everything is sensitive to me now,” she tells her. “After the serum… everything is good.”

Natasha’s smile is wicked. “That’s very good to know.”

With very surprising upper body strength against someone who has a super-soldier serum running through her veins, diluted though it might be, Natasha shoves her down onto the bed and crawls on top of her.

She cradles her neck and kisses her hard.

“So, this is my first time with a woman, and I’d like to explore,” she says, almost formally.

Toni stretches like a cat underneath her. “Whatever you want.”

Natasha’s smile turns from less wicked to softer, kinder, gentler. Her hand trails down from the hollow of her throat to the hollow between her breasts, before circling the curves of her breasts with a single finger. She grasps Toni’s nipples between her fingers and tugs.

Toni grunts and writhes down on the sheets.

Natasha bites her lower lip and dips her head, taking one of her nipples in between her teeth, her tongue laving at the flesh. Toni winds her hand into her hair, knotting against her scalp and tugging, her back arching into a perfect curve.

“Sweet,” Natasha comments, when she pulls back.

She crawls her way down, kissing every inch of skin she can get her mouth on, all the while Toni rubs against her like a cat, feline and delirious. Natasha slides a thigh between her leg, and Toni lifts her hips, rocking her cunt against her hard, muscled thigh, until she leaves a damp streak in her wake.

Natasha’s fingers bite into her hips tight enough to bruise, and then, she shoulders her thighs apart, now face-to-face with her cunt. Toni shifts under her, wet and restless. The first time that Natasha licks into her, delving in deep, Toni almost throws herself off the bed in surprise and glee. She bangs a fist against the ground, her fingers clutching at the sheets, and she clamps her thighs around Natasha’s head, as she buries her face between her thighs, licking at her cunt.

One of her hand trails up the length of her body to curl around her breast, thumbing her nipple in a wilful, possessive gesture. Toni wriggles about underneath her, shaking from head to foot, and the next time that Natasha runs her tongue over her clit, her whole body shudders and goes taut. Toni yanks at the sheets and writhe, scrabbling, and then, she comes, grinding against Natasha’s face.

Natasha pulls back, feline and contented, so satisfied with the way that Toni’s thighs shake, her tendons taut under her skin, like she wants to claw at her face in pleasure, and then, she leans down, mindful of where she’s pulsing, and licks her clean where she’s dripping.

When she’s finished, she leans back on her knees.

“Well?” she says, running her tongue over her lower lip. “How was that for my first time?”

“Very good,” Toni says, panting, her lungs in her throat.

“I’m glad,” Natasha says, satisfied.

And then, she’s shouting, when Toni’s tipping her onto her back adn clambering on top of her.

“What the-”

“Now, it’s your turn,” Toni says and drags her lower half into her lap, splaying her legs out.

She trails her fingers down her abdomen, watching as her muscles contract and flex at her touch. She drags a finger down the crease between Natasha’s pale thigh and her pelvic bone, the soft, dark skin there, before trailing up the length of her cunt.

Natasha sucks in a sharp breath, her teeth grinding.

She’s wet, dripping down her thighs, even before Toni gets her fingers on her. Before she even second-guesses herself, she gives her exposed sex a smack with her open palm, her hand coming back wet.

Natasha shrieks and shifts restlessly on top of Toni’s lap.

Her thumb rubs soft circles around her hard, little clit, watching with startling intensity as Natasha moans underneath her, her toes straightening and then curling. She cups Natasha’s sex and then, slowly but surely, works a finger steadily inside.

Natasha makes a soft, desperate noise, her face shining with sweat, and staring up at her through hooded eyes. She grinds down against the intrusion, against the finger disappearing inside her body, and then, Toni’s slipping two, thin, long fingers up inside her, greedily.

Natasha whines low in her throat. “You’re a bit of a tease, aren’t you?” she rasps, her voice nothing more than a rough exhale of breath.

“You should ask Yasha,” Toni replies, her tone absent, her eyes fixed on the way her legs are splayed open and loose over Toni’s thighs, her soft breasts and lithe body, the way she can’t keep her lust off her face, flushed and panting and writhing like this, all from Toni with her fingers inside her.

She hasn’t been with a woman in so long that she’d almost forgotten the image of it, the image of a woman taken apart under her hands and tongue, the rush of satisfaction when you get to a stage where her eyes dilate, open and fluttering shut, the cloying scent of slick in the air, the perfect fit of her around Toni’s fingers.

Natasha is as wet as a ripe peach, and she’s like crumpled silk there, her cunt as pink as her mouth, her insides hot like she has a fever, and her voice catches in her throat every time she pushes her hand between her legs, twisting and crooking her fingers mercilessly.

She dips her fingers inside once more, circling her clit with her thumb, still coaxing her to that brink. Natasha mewls and twists in the sheets, twists half onto her side, before she pants and goes back onto her back, and she’s murmuring something wordless.

Toni feels her orgasm before she sees it, feels the way Natasha’s cunt squeezes her so tight that she wonders if Natasha will pull her fingers right off her hand. She comes hard, her face twisting with ecstasy, and there’s a bead of sweat dripping between her breasts, and Toni can’t help herself – she leans forward and drags her tongue, tasting her sweat, and waits, soothes Natasha as she rides out her climax, still pulsing around her fingers.

“Fuck,” Natasha pants, sinking back onto the bed once she stops seizing.

“Yeah, fuck,” Toni says, in the same tone, as she shoves her legs off and topples onto the bed beside her.

She pushes her hair away from her neck, high above her head, spilling across the sheets. She turns onto her side, hand running over the slope of her hip.

“So?” she says, waggling her eyebrows.

“You were very good,” Natasha says. “I don’t know why I thought you wouldn’t be.”

Toni arches an eyebrow. “You thought I wouldn’t be good?” she asks, not knowing whether she needs to be offended or just take it in stride.

Natasha shrugs. “You know, they always say that women are just instinctively better at sex than men, and you know, there’s something to be said about having sex with another woman, because they know a woman’s body better than a man would know, because they’ve been taking care of their body, satisfying it since they realised that it could be used for pleasure. I thought it was a fairy tale.”

“Really?” she asks, curiously.

“Yeah, I thought sex is sex, and sex is usually bad, just something to be done to get information or some item or-”

“Wait, sex is usually bad for you?” Toni asks, confused, her brow furrowing.

“Yes,” Natasha says, slowly.

“You’ve had orgasms before, though, right? Before the one I just gave you?” Toni pushes.

“Well, yeah, of course, but with myself. Not with…” her face flames, and Natasha looks away. “It’s not necessary to have an orgasm every time you have sex,” she says, almost hotly. “There are more important things that happen during sex.”

“Like getting information,” Toni says, almost amused.

“Exactly! Exactly. So, yeah, I’m not… I’m not ashamed that I’ve never had an orgasm when I’m having sex with someone else. Well, until you.”

“Is it better?” Toni asks, her voice a little sly, a little syrupy. “Is it better when you have an orgasm while you’re having sex with me?”

Natasha’s throat flexes. “Yes,” she clears her throat, her voice rasping. “Yes, it is better.”

“I’m glad I was able to give you that,” Toni says, honestly.

Natasha worries her teeth on her lower lip. “Is it better with your soulmate?”

Toni blinks at her, slow and wide. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve had sex with other people, right? Including me? Is it better having sex with your soulmate?” Natasha asks, her voice a little strained. “I’ve always been curious, I mean.”

Natasha lifts her hand, her wrist, and removes a thin strap of leather from skin just under the palm of her hand (Toni remembers that thin strap of leather; she had that strip of leather covering her soulmark for _years_ ). Where Toni has a soulmark, a soulmark that surprisingly HYDRA had never touched (maybe they hadn’t thought it necessary; maybe they thought they were too beaten-down to do anything about the names scrawled on their wrists; maybe, maybe, maybe), Natasha just has a burn.

Natasha just has a burn.

In contrast, Toni lifts her own wrist, which has _James Buchanan Barnes_ written proudly across the width of it.

“They burn us at nine,” Natasha explains. “Burn the name right off. So, there can be nothing more important to us than the mission, no soulmate, no child, because they also sterilise us as a graduation ceremony of sorts. So, no soulmate, no child. I always wondered if sex was better with a soulmate.”

“It’s different,” Toni says, hedging a little. “Not because it’s mystical or magical or anything, but because… when you have sex with your soulmate and you’re both on the same page, you are sharing something with someone that is… beautiful, it’s just beautiful. So, yes, it is different, it is better for me. I have only been with men and women who see me as meat; I can imagine it’s the same for you. But I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone else who has sex with their soulmates. I don’t know if it’s only better for me and Yasha because we _are_ on the same page.”

Natasha breathes, sharp and hot. “And children?” she wonders out loud.

“I still have all the parts,” Toni tells her, breathing in tandem with her heartbeat. “They didn’t take that away from me, even if… even if a part of me wanted them to. It actually… it actually pushed me to escape.”

Natasha looks at her, curiously.

“They were going to fertilise me,” she says, the words blistering her tongue. “You see, I had the serum, so any child that I brought into the world, especially Yasha’s child, would have the serum as well. So… they were going to fertilise me, so I’d give birth to the next generation of super soldiers. I didn’t like the idea, so I killed them all, and we escaped. But I made a promise to myself that day, when we left, when we blew up the whole place. I made a promise that I will never have a child. I will never give HYDRA what it wanted from me.”

Natasha stares at her and leans forward, licking the sweat from her throat, as if it were an undeniable urge.

“Won’t you get lonely?” she asks. “Just you and Yasha.”

Toni lets herself smile. “Yasha is all I need in this world.”


	19. xix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: polyamory negotiations, misunderstandings/hurt and comfort.

“So?” James asks, as he slips between the sheets, wraps his arms around her thin, lithe body.

“So what?”

“How did it go, with Natasha?” James asks, after kissing her stupid, almost like he was staking his claim.

“It was very nice,” Toni says, loftily.

“That’s all I’m going to get?” James asks, arching an eyebrow.

“What, would you like a play-by-play?” Toni retorts in the exact same tone. “Well, we kissed for a bit. And then, she licked me out, and then, I fingered her until she came.”

Something pulses down low, even as she says the words.

The look in his eyes is hot and almost hungry, like he wants to take her right the fuck now.

“See, you like it,” she teases, poking him in the ribs.

“I’m thinking about you,” he huffs. “Nothing else.”

Toni leans over, gripping him by the jaw, and presses her mouth to his just quick and fleeting.

“It was just one time,” she says, her voice vague.

James turns to her, smoothing her hair out of her face. “Who said that?”

* * *

It isn’t just one time.

She tries very hard to stay away from Natasha after that, until one night, James throws a dish towel onto the table with a dull smack, glowering at her, and tells her to invite Natasha for dinner, so that they can have a conversation.

Toni does what he says and invites Natasha to dinner.

“Okay, so, should I be worried?” Natasha says, when James drops a bottle of wine down onto the table.

“Why should you be worried?” James says, his pale eyes honest.

“Because, I slept with your soulmate, and while she told me that you were okay with it, I don’t know if that’s changed or if that was even true. You could be trying to poison me for all I know,” Natasha says, defiance in the tilt of her chin.

James eyes her carefully. “If I wanted to kill you for sleeping with Toni, I wouldn’t poison you,” he says, plainly.

“Because it’s a woman’s weapon?” Natasha sneers.

“No, because it wouldn’t be smart or efficient. I’d have shot you in the head as you walked through the door, and then, I could’ve burned your body outside the backyard under the guise of having a bonfire, and no one would have thought any differently,” James says, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Toni just stares at them. “Okay, this conversation is officially uncomfortable for my tastes.”

“Look, we invited you to dinner because we wanted to have a conversation about you having sex with my soulmate,” James explains.

“What is there to have a conversation about?” Natasha says, taking an artful swig of her wine. “It happened once and now, it’s over.”

James leans over the counter. “Did you really want it to be only one time?” he asks, solemn as the grave.

Natasha promptly looks like a deer caught in headlights. “What are you trying to suggest?” she asks, carefully, a suspicious edge to her voice.

“I’m trying to suggest that maybe you don’t want it to be only one time, and I’m trying to suggest that Toni shares that want.”

“So, you called me here so you could accuse myself and your soulmate of carrying on an emotional affair behind your back?” Natasha asks, dubiously, raising an eyebrow.

“For fuck’s sake,” James mutters under his breath. “No, I called you here because the angst between the two of you is driving me crazy. Clearly, you both want each other and I’m sick of seeing the awkwardness. So, I want to propose something.”

“What?” Toni asks, warily.

“It’s called a polyamorous relationship,” James explains, proudly. “I looked it up on the Internet.”

Toni pinches the bridge of her nose. “Oh, dear,” she murmurs.

“Shut up,” he tells her, as he pours some gravy on her potatoes. “Look, I propose that we enter into such a relationship.”

“So, the three of us would be a relationship?” Natasha says, dubiously.

“Yes, but no,” James says, his brow furrowing. “So, Toni and I are in a relationship, and you and Toni would be in a relationship, but the two of us… two of us could be just friends. Are you interested in me like that?”

Natasha snorts. “God, no.”

“Me neither,” he says, cheerfully. “I believe that’s called a queerplatonic relationship? I’m good with that, if you and Toni are going to continue your relationship.”

Natasha purses her lips and looks over at Toni. “And you’re okay with this?”

“I don’t want it to be just once,” Toni says, honestly. “And for some reason, while Yasha is jealous with everyone, he isn’t jealous with you, and if he’s happy with this arrangement, I’m happy with it. I just hope you are.”

Natasha looks between her and James. “You’re sure about this,” she finally says, her voice heavy with age.

“Yes,” James says.

“I am,” Toni agrees.

Natasha takes a deep, steadying breath. “Okay, okay, then. Let’s do this.”

* * *

From that moment on, James and Antonia became James and Antonia and Natasha.

Pepper and Sharon take some convincing, the latter having not forgiven Natasha completely for showing up as a SHIELD agent with intent to manipulate an already ailing Toni, but they get over it, and suddenly, they’re no longer a couple and Natasha’s no longer a third wheel, and they’re all in this together.

They make room for Natasha in their house, make place for her in their bed, in their closet, in their kitchen, all the small spots in their home that makes it a home. Natasha’s laundry joins their laundry, her ice cream sits in the freezer and her guns are added to the stock they have littering the entire house.

Toni was half-expecting it to be incredibly odd to have Natasha sleeping with them in the same bed, but somehow it isn’t. The bed is suddenly small, what with three fully-grown adult humans lying under the sheets, but other than that, all three take to it with immense fortitude. In fact, more often than not, Toni has caught James and Natasha cuddling when she gets out of bed to go for a shower.

Sometimes, James will come home from the supermarket, and Natasha will be lying on the couch, bleeding, and he’ll have to patch her up, as he once did for Toni when they were in the game. Sometimes, Natasha will bring down food to the workshop after Toni has been down there for more than six hours. And, of course, it’s Toni who cleans out James’ guns, just before he decides to go shooting out the back.

They settle into a comfortable life, all three of them together, and it’s all good, until it’s not.

* * *

** 2012 **

“We have a request,” one of their clients, Andy, declares.

Toni watches in bemusement as a gaggle of housewives surround James in the boxing pen, his expression falling away, replaced with alarming confusion. Toni bites back a laugh at the way his face contorts.

James recovers though, quite quickly. “Okay, what’s your request?”

“We think you’re lying to us,” Andy tells them, eyes narrowing.

“Oh,” James says, his voice an octave higher than it should be.

“We think you’re much better than you pretend to me.”

“Better at what?” James asks, his brow furrowing.

“Fighting,” Andy explains, rolling her eyes. “We think you’re one of those secret agent types and can totally fight like a ninja.”

_ Well, _ Toni thinks. _You’re not wrong_.

“And we think Toni’s just like you,” Andy says, her eyes darting over to where Toni’s standing at the reception desk with some paperwork.

It’s strange that they even bother, frankly, because most of their clients don’t particularly pay much attention to her, James’ strange, sharp-edged girlfriend that does the paperwork and the books and all the administrative stuff, but they’ve also seen her lay out a drunk who gets too handsy at the bar in the town square. James is easy with all of them; he has that easy charm, with his long hair and his pale eyes and his nice, soft mouth that he turns up into a smile every now and then. Every woman and a lot of the men who walk through the doors of the gym have a crush on James, a solid, _I would join our names together and draw hearts around that name_ crush on him; he has that soulful, sober, _I have been out in the world and it has hurt me_ quality about him, and everyone eats it up.

Toni, on the other hand, keeps to herself. She does her work, silently and quickly, and they only ever see her smile when she’s looking at James. The women who walk into the gym are intimidated by her; she scares them, with her severe look and her lean muscle and her sharp, biting wit. The men who walk into the gym want to fuck her, because all they see is her nice, long hair, the generous swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, and her red mouth like it has a slash of lipstick over it. The children, though, for some inane reason, the children like her, and that’s something that she has over even James.

Some people would think it strange that the daughter of a millionaire industrialist is content being the receptionist of a small-town gym, teaching self-defence to little children and bored housewives, but Toni is happy. She is happy when the little girls that they teach tell her that she used one of her moves on the bully at school and she got herself suspended for a weak because she knocked him on his ass after he wouldn’t stop pulling her pigtails. She is happy when the housewife that shows up with way too much concealer around her eyes and her wrists shows up, telling her that she’s decided to leave his ass, divorce him and take him for half of what he has.

Toni is happy here.

And when she’d stood in front of a podium and she’d told the world what happened to her, the paparazzi had swarmed their little town like a locust plague. Where she thought she wouldn’t be able to go to the supermarket without getting stares and whispers, the town had banded together for her and James, called her brave, called her a survivor. When the press had come to their little gym, they hadn’t been met with Toni or James, as they’d been expecting; no, they’d been met with housewives with bats and a lot of threats.

Toni is so very happy here, and even if she comes from money, even if there is a sizeable bank account that means that she could retire to the Santorini coast and never have to work another day in her life, she isn’t going anywhere.

Toni rounds the corner. “What makes you think that, Andy?” she asks, padding over to the ring.

Andy shifts on her feet and exchanges a look with her friends. “Well, you’re both always so secretive about how you learned how to do these things. Plus, we may have caught you sparring once, just before one of our lessons,” she says, sheepishly.

“Ah,” Toni says, nodding.

“So, we have a request,” Andy goes on, an indomitable force in her own right. “We want you to fight, the two of you in the ring, while we watch. And don’t go easy on each other either,” she warns.

Toni smiles. _If we didn’t go easy on each other, there would be blood all over this place._

James’ eyes dart over to her. “What d’you say, doll?” he asks, his arms braced on the rope, his smile growing catlike. “Should we give ‘em a show?” the Brooklyn in his voice slips out a little.

Toni lets herself smile as well, it turning sharp at the edges, like a knife slicing through warm butter. “If it’ll make them happy, but only if you can handle it, babe,” she taunts.

“Ooh,” Andy and her friends mock with a light giggle.

James rolls his eyes. “Get up here. You guys, get down there.”

Andy and her friends shrug and slip out of the boxing ring at the same time that Toni climbs inside, facing James.

“Last chance to back out?” he tells her, waggling his eyebrows.

Toni arches her eyebrow. “Don’t worry, _l’vjonok_ , I promise not to make you cry in front of your fangirls,” she says in slow, rolling Russian.

“Oh, my God, Andy, I _told_ you. They’re Russian spies,” one of the women below hisses to her friend.

“Oh, my God, Giselle, _shut up_!”

James lifts his fists, and Toni plants her feet square on the floor.

James attacks first, because she’s smaller and quicker, and she always starts out her games by defending. He swings for her with his flesh hand, and she ducks, her leg sweeping out to catch his ankles. He jumps to avoid it, and she’s on her feet and kicking at his ribs before he even realises what’s happening. He takes the blow with a rough jolt, his body caving in slightly to protect himself.

When he raises his head, he’s glowering at her, and she’s smiling, waggling her eyebrows.

He growls, a low, rumbling sound in his chest, and he punches out again, aiming for her shoulder. She ducks, avoiding the blow, but his foot smacks into her calf, and she goes down, onto one knee.

He crouches down, his smile broadening.

_ Oh, now, it’s on. _

She aims an uppercut to his stomach, and she’s sliding to her feet. She aims her elbow for his jaw, and his head snaps back (he’ll probably have a bruise in a few hours). And then, she’s climbing on top of him like a tree, and she can hear the exaggerated, awed sighs from their crowd of spectators, and she has her legs locked around his throat. He grips her by the waist and brings her down, and her back hits the floor of the ring with a smack and she’s breathless with it, breathless with the ache and breathless with the adrenaline. He’s pinning her down, but she winds her hand up and curls it around his throat, tightening just the slightest to make his eyes widen.

A slow clap draws their attention.

Natasha stands at the back of the gym, and she’s clapping, a smile taking form on her face.

James and Toni extract themselves from each other, and they stand, facing the crowd.

“Well, how was that?” James asks, narrowing his eyes at his class.

“I knew it,” Andy says, triumphantly. “I knew you two were secret ninjas.”

Toni huffs out a laugh.

“Okay, okay,” James rolls his eyes. “Class is over. I’ll see you next week.”

The housewives all get up and find their bags, heading out of the gym, shooting Natasha confusing, uncertain looks.

“That was fun,” Natasha comments, once they’re all gone.

“It was,” Toni agrees, stretching out like a cat. “It’s been a while since we did that.” She shoots her soulmate a lazy look. “Only in bed, when we wrestle around.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “We need you,” she tells them, her voice turning from teasing to solemn as the grave.

Toni tilts her head. “For what?”

“Something has come up, and we need your help.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “You mean, you need me, as in Iron Woman, you need him, as the Winter Soldier, or you need both of us?”

It feels strange, even after all these years, to shun the name _Engineer_ and accept _Iron Woman_ , but _Iron Woman_ understands her better than the _Engineer_ does; the _Engineer_ is the name that HYDRA gave her, that HYDRA wanetd her to be.

She doesn’t want to be anything that HYDRA wanted her to be.

“Both of you, I need both of you.”

James leans over the edge of the rope. “Are you alright, Natalia?” he asks, giving her a measured look.

Natasha’s hands shake. “Something’s wrong,” she says, vaguely, with the guarded look of an animal crossing the threshold into a cage. “Something’s wrong, and you need to come in.”

* * *

“Will someone now please tell us what’s going on?” Toni demands, as the helicopter lands on a base in the middle of the ocean, only to be visited by Phil Coulson standing outside, when she steps down.

Coulson looks at her briefly before his grim stare goes right over her shoulder towards Bucky.

“Something’s happened,” he says, simply.

“That’s all Natasha’s said since she came to get us,” Toni complains. “I want more information.”

“Why don’t you get inside, and we’ll explain everything to you?” Natasha soothes.

Toni fixes her with a measured look. “You made us drive for miles, and then fly to this SHIELD base in the middle of nowhere, and you want us to go inside before you give us any sort of explanation for why you expected us to drop everything and come with you?”

Natasha shrugs. “Pretty much.”

Toni exchanges a look with James, who rolls his eyes. He steps down, out of the helicopter, and his hand touches the small of her back.

“You know she’s not going to tell you anything any earlier than she wants to,” he mutters. “You might as well go back inside.”

“Fine,” Toni huffs and starts walking to the entrance to the base, while SHIELD agents run around her like they’re on a Navy ship in international waters.

“Toni,” Natasha calls out.

Toni turns around, her eyebrow arched.

“Brace yourself,” she says, grimly.

Toni’s brow furrows his confusion, and she opens her mouth to ask for clarification, but James drags her inside before she can say anything.

* * *

The briefing room is nice. It’s a large, open room, with two levels, a level for those in charge, and there’s a level below for those doing scut on a number of columns of computers. She spots someone playing Galaga on their computer in the corner, but she’s more intrigued by Fury standing at the head of the monitors, high above everyone else.

There’s a man sitting at the round conference table behind Fury, his hair the colour of beaten gold.

He lifts his head, and the breath whooshes right out of her lungs.

She knows that face; she’s seen that face half a hundred times in a black and white photo, both as it is now, and before, when he looked very different, smaller and thinner and his collarbone looked bird-beak sharp; she’s seen videos of him, videos with him smiling and laughing, with an arm around a younger, lighter, grinning Bucky Barnes.

He doesn’t look at her at all; his pale blue eyes, the colour of a summer storm, are fixed on James standing beside her, and she curls a hand around his wrist, feeling all of his tendons taut under his skin, knowing the tight line of his shoulders even without having to look at him.

“Bucky,” Steve Rogers says, breathlessly, his voice pained, like he’d had the shit beaten out of him. “Bucky, is that you?”

He clambers to his feet and knocks a chair to the ground in his haste, drawing the attention of everyone in the room, but he doesn’t spare it a second glance, staring at James like he’s staring at a wraith.

Toni tears his eyes from Steve to look over her shoulder.

Natasha shrugs, the look in her eyes bleak. “Told you, brace yourself.”

* * *

Toni drags her to the side, after they’ve been moved to a different room so they have this conversation in private.

“You didn’t think to inform us that Yasha’s greatest friend was alive before you brought us here?” she grinds out.

Natasha stares at her, unapologetically. “We couldn’t be sure you’d come if you knew.”

“You thought he wouldn’t come?”

“We thought you wouldn’t _let_ him come,” Natasha corrects.

Toni stares at her. “This isn’t over,” she warns.

Natasha sighs. “I know.”

She turns back to James and Steve, who watch each other, just watch each other, as if they can’t get his legs to work.

“I don’t…” Steve is the first to say something, his eyes wet and shining, his face crumbled in sorrow. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. I don’t-”

“Stevie,” James rasps, with the guarded look of a wild beast crossing into a cage. “Steve, that’s not…”

Steve takes a step forward, and then another and another until he’s standing right in front of James. He presses one finger to James’ shoulder, his flesh arm, and then shoves.

James just sways back on his feet.

Somehow, it looks like that’s worse for Steve, whose expression is utterly flummoxed.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” he finally manages to say, gaping at Bucky in disbelief, unblinking. “I don’t… you’re supposed to be dead. I _watched_ you die. That’s not… You _fell_ , you fell, you shouldn’t be here-”

“Fury,” James snarls, his eyes darting from Steve to land on Fury, who’s standing by the monitors, with an aimless stare. “What the hell is going on here? How…”

Fury sighs and steps away from the monitors. “We didn’t tell you both because we weren’t sure of how you would react, and we have a situation on our hands; the situation is not helped by you both having a domestic.”

“A domestic?” Toni says, incredulously, arching an eyebrow. “Do you even hear yourself?”

Steve’s eyes fly to her, once he hears her voice, and the look in his eyes leaves goosebumps rising on her skin in its wake.

The silence, it’s suffocating now, making it hard for all of them to breathe, and she looks at Fury with a stern glance.

Fury takes a deep breath. “Did you know that Howard Stark searched for Captain Rogers until the day he died?” he says, his lip curling up. “He knew that Captain Rogers’ plane had gone down somewhere in the ocean, and he sent vessels to see if he could at least bring his body back.”

Strange, Howard had never really spoken of Steve Rogers to her.

“He had no luck, of course, and then, he died,” Fury says, eyes darting towards her just for a fleeting moment. “But the vessels kept searching. No one removed funding for them. A week ago, the vessels found something; they found the plane that Captain Rogers had gone down in, as well as a body.”

Toni surreptitiously looks at Steve and finds that his hand is shaking.

“But it wasn’t a corpse as the vessel’s men quickly figured out. The body still had a heartbeat, a pulse; he was just… completely frozen over,” Fury says, awkwardly. “SHIELD was alerted-”

“-even though it wasn’t your vessel?” Toni arches an eyebrow.

Fury scowls at her, and Steve, as if finally realising that there are other people in this room but for him and Bucky, turns to her as well, blinking slow and wide, as if trying to decipher who she might be. He runs his eyes over her, even and studious, and she wonders, if he can spot it, if he can catalogue all the similarities between her and Howard, and he can figure it out, that she’s his daughter.

He doesn’t say a word, just keeps those obnoxiously beautiful eyes on her the whole time.

“SHIELD was alerted,” he stresses like he’s warning her not to speak again without her leave. “We took Captain Rogers into our custody, and our medical personnel were able to defrost the ice around him while keeping his body intact and his vitals stable. He woke up a few hours later, once we moved him into the base.” Fury eyes Steve, carefully. “He didn’t exactly take it well.”

Steve turns red. “I didn’t know,” he says, grimacing. “I thought… I thought it was a trick, by HYDRA.”

“It wasn’t,” Fury huffs. “We were just trying to make sure that you woke up in a comfortable place without panicking. It backfired on us.” He drags his hand over his face. “And now we have a situation.”

“And you didn’t tell us before you dragged us here,” Toni says, her voice flat, dead.

Steve looks at her, his brow furrowing, as if he’s wondering why the news of his survival would affect her so much, why she would need to know.

“It was considered on a need-to-know business, and you weren’t need-to-know,” Fury says, simply,

Toni tilts her head. “I’m tempted to punch you in the face.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve blurts out, drawing all the attention to him, his skin still a blotchy pink from hairline to collar. “But who are you?” he asks Toni, worrying his teeth on his lower lip.

Toni’s eyes widen, and she’s uncertain for the first time she’d climbed down from that helicopter. Her eyes dart to James, unsure of how she should answer, whether he wants to answer for her. He looks helpless himself, shrugging his shoulders.

Finally, she takes charge of the situation, stepping forward, stretching out her hand for him to shake.

“My name is Antonia,” she says, solemn as the grave. “Antonia Stark.”

Steve takes a deep breath, and she sees the realisation flicker in his pale eyes, if it hadn’t before, as he runs his eyes over her, notes the similarities in appearance between her and Howard (she’s about evenly split between Howard and Maria) and lets himself believe that one of his friends, his contemporary, has a daughter who looks the same age as him.

“Stark,” he says, his voice thin. “As in… as in Howard-”

“He was my father,” Toni explains, haltingly.

Steve licks his lips. “ _Was_ ,” he stresses.

Toni lifts her chin, defiance in every tilt. “He passed away a few years ago.”

“Oh,” Steve says, lamely, and swallows hard. “Oh, well, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Toni says, quietly.

“This is all… look, it’s not that I’m not happy to meet you, but no one’s still explained to me why my best friend is standing right in front of me, alive and-and whole,” Steve says, even if his eyes track down to the metal hand he can see peeking out of James’ sleeve. “When I watched him fall to his death in the Alps seventy years ago. Will someone please explain that?” he asks, his voice edging towards frustration.

James is just standing there, like he can’t breathe, like he can’t move, he can’t do anything but keep his eyes on Steve.

“Yasha,” she says, her voice cutting through the suffocating silence. “Yasha?” she says, again, reaching forward to place a hand on his arm.

He jerks out of her grip like she’s diseased, and she tries not to take it personally, especially when his eyes turn to her, round and wide as the moon.

“Okay, okay,” she soothes, turning up her hands. “Do you want me to…?” she trails off, pointedly.

“No, it’s okay, I can…” James clears his throat. “I didn’t… uh, I didn’t die when I fell,” he tells Steve, solemn as the grave. “You can probably tell that, uh… I was alive when I landed on the ground.”

“Oh, God,” Steve moans and sinks into a chair, all that is hard and ugly staring back at them in his face.

“My arm was gone, hacked off at the elbow,” James says, matter of fact. “It must have gotten cut off during the fall.”

James rolls up his sleeve, revealing the smooth, lined plating of the metal arm that Toni had made for him.

Steve makes a hurt little noise when he sees it, his face folding in torment.

“HYDRA found me,” James blurts out before he loses his nerve. “They’re the ones who found me at the bottom of that ravine. Uh, they took me.”

Every word that James says makes Steve’s face a shade whiter.

“They… they decided to remove the whole arm, replace with a metal one, not this one,” James says, hurriedly. “No, uh, this one’s new. I was awake for it, when they took my arm, I remember,” he says, with almost a tremor of glee, because he remembers something, something that cryo might have taken from him. “They… well, they have this machine, it’s called… it’s called…” his hands start shaking.

Toni can’t help herself. “It’s called the Chair,” she says, quickly.

He looks at her, his face awash with relief, and she flashes the edge of her smile for him.

Steve shakes his head. “HYDRA… HYDRA died with the Red Skull,” he insists, like he doesn’t want to believe it, like there’s nothing worse they could be saying.

“They really didn’t,” Toni says, sourness leaking into her voice.

Steve looks at her.

“What’s the-what’s the Chair?” he asks, then, his voice a little strangled.

“It’s this… this machine that takes away memories,” James says, the smile coming easily to his face, devoid of emotion. “From-from 1945 to 1995, I wasn’t… I wasn’t Bucky Barnes anymore. They made sure to take away everything that made me Bucky Barnes.”

Steve just looks at him, helpless, like he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

“I didn’t remember you,” James says, not unkindly. “They took away all my memories of _you_ , Steve. I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know what my name was, how old I was, what my mother looked like, if I had any brothers or sisters. They took all of it. In Bucky Barnes’ place, I became the Winter Soldier. That’s what they called me: the Winter Soldier.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, his throat flexing like he’s swallowing a mouthful of bile. He grinds his teeth. “You were taken prisoner by HYDRA during the war, you and the rest of the 107th-”

James nods. “They experimented on me with a diluted version of the serum that you got. It’s probably the only reason I survived that fall,” he says and falls silent. “They programmed me to be a killer for them.”

“What?” Steve says, painfully,

James sighs. “They used to send the Winter Soldier out on missions to kill people who were in opposition to HYDRA’s interests. That happened from 1945 when they got me to 1995, when we left.”

“ _We_?” Steve prods.

“Toni and me,” James says, bluntly.

Steve’s eyes swing to her. “You’re HYDRA?” he asks, a suspicious edge creeping into his voice.

“I am _not_ HYDRA,” Toni says, coldly, not caring if this is James’ best friend that he might have been in love with or not.

“But he just said that the _two_ of you escaped from HYDRA,” Steve argues.

“We’re soulmates, Steve,” James says, quietly.

Steve’s neck turns so fast that Toni wonders if a tendon has torn, but it’s the look in Steve’s eyes that pains her the most, the way that his expression morphs into something wounded and sharp, like betrayal, like disbelief, like hurt, like he wasn’t expecting to be faced with something like this, like a soulmate.

Not for the first time since she’s seen Steve Rogers in the flesh, she remembers how Peggy had spoken of him and Bucky Barnes, how they were soulmates in everything but marks, and for a brief, terrible moment, _she_ feels like the interloper, she feels like she is laying claim to something that had been given away long before she existed.


	20. xx.

James rolls up the sleeve of his jacket on his flesh hand, revealing his wrist with her name: _Antonia Margaret Stark_.

Steve just stares at it – _maybe he thinks that if he stares enough, the name will disappear_ , she muses.

“May 29th, 1970, I got the mark. I was less than human at that point. I didn’t have a sense of individual thought; I had protocols, so I thought it was an asset deterioration issue,” James says, without mincing words.

Steve chokes. “ _Asset_ deterioration?”

“It’s what they called us in HYDRA. Assets,” James answers simply.

“That sounds… that sounds…”

James’ lips twist. “Dehumanising?” he offers, dryly. “Barbaric? Disgusting? It was all of those things. They called me an asset, and when I got the soulmark, I thought my body, as in, the asset, was deteriorating. So, I reported it to the handler. He was immediately pissed off,” he muses. “He told me that it wasn’t deterioration, but that it was a soulmark. I was given orders, to go and collect my soulmate, wherever she may be, and bring her to HYDRA, so that she could be raised there, raised to be an asset for HYDRA as well.”

“Oh,” Steve says, in a soft voice, and then, his eyes drift over to Toni. “Oh, so you were…” he trails off.

“He kidnapped me,” Toni says, simply. “From the hospital, from the incubator.”

A part of her says it like that, almost like she’s condemning James for not being stronger, so Steve Rogers will regret what he said, about her being with HYDRA.

Steve winces, and there is regret there, which satisfies her.

“She… I trained her, to be just like me,” James says, haltingly, shamefaced, as if Steve Rogers is the only one who could judge him, and have it matter. “Every now and then, they put me in the Chair, and they wiped me.”

Steve’s mouth pinches in a taut line.

“Sooner or later, we got… I guess, disillusioned with HYDRA,” James says, vaguely. “What they were doing, what they were making us do, and we… we left.”

“You left?”

“We left,” James repeats, heavily.

“You just left, and they… what, they let you go?” Steve says, incredulously.

“We’re also very good at leaving,” James says, dryly. “We don’t… we don’t really leave much of them to chase after us. We’ve built up an image of ourselves for them, and they’re scared. It works for us.”

“Us,” Steve says, flatly, his eyes wandering to Toni again, like he finds her wanting, like he can’t understand what it is about her that could provoke all of this, like she’s _ruined_ Bucky Barnes, like it was her that destroyed him and replaced him with someone else.

Bands like steel settle around her chest, constricting her lungs.

She doesn’t know whether she should rage or sob at the injustice of all of this.

She can’t stop seeing the way they look at each other, these two men, who can’t possibly just be friends.

Finally, Steve drags his hand over his face and into his hair, mussing it up at the roots.

“I just… I’m sorry, I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that you’re here, you’re _standing_ here and…” he trails off, pathetically earnest.

She feels a twinge of empathy for him, curling in her chest – she can’t imagine what it was like for him, to watch him fall to his death, to watch him die and know that he couldn’t do anything to stop it, and then, to wake up seventy years later, find him here, whole and unharmed and even content with his life, with a whole new life that he isn’t a part of, while he feels as though he’s tearing apart at the seams, unable to hold himself together.

“Tell me about it.” James pauses. “Steve, you’re _here_ , you’re actually here,” he says, amazed, his smile painfully wide. “I thought… fuck, Stevie, I thought you were dead. I didn’t… for so long, I didn’t even remember you, and when I did, it was like hell, because I knew there was this part of me that was important but I couldn’t touch it, and every time I tried to touch it, they’d take it away from me. And then, when I could remember you, I remembered that you were dead… and-and you were just dead. _Fuck_ -”

James lunges forward, faster than Toni has ever seen him, and throws his arms around Steve, clutching at him, hard enough to bruise, and after a moment, with his hands shaking, Steve also raises his arms to close around James, tight, face buried into his shoulders, the two men weeping like children.

Toni backs away until she’s slinking out of the room.

* * *

“Hey,” James says, as he approaches her.

Toni turns around from the Helicarrier’s bridge to see him and Steve at his shoulder.

“Hey,” she replies in a soft undertone.

He pulls her to him, pressing his lips against the edge of her hair.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“I have no clue; I still don’t know what we’re even doing here,” Toni huffs.

“His name is Loki,” Steve says, awkwardly, scuffing his foot against the ground. “Apparently, he’s some sort of alien with magic?”

“Loki, as in the Norse god?” Toni says, incredulously.

Steve nods. “The same. It seems that there was… there was an incident down south a couple of years ago. A guy named Thor showed up, and Loki showed up right after he did with a giant metal robot that blew up the entire town. It’s not the first time SHIELD’s tangled with this guy. But this time, he…” he trails off, his brow furrowing.

Toni looks at him, curiously.

“He took the Tesseract,” Steve explains. “That’s-”

“I know what the Tesseract is,” she cuts him off, faultlessly polite.

“Oh, well, yeah,” Steve says, lamely. “Loki apparently took the Tesseract along with a couple of SHIELD agents with this… this sceptre of his that apparently controls minds.”

Toni’s throat flexes. “I hate mind-control,” she declares, her voice thin, ignoring the way that something climbs black and frightful in her chest.

“Me too,” James says in the exact same cold tone.

“And aliens, huh? Aliens and magic,” Toni sighs. “Just when I thought our lives couldn’t get even more fucked up.”

Steve’s face turns flushed – she wonders if he’s used to women swearing in front of him.

He recovers quickly. “They told me that they’re looking for a location. Once they have it, they’ll send us out.”

“Us?” Toni says, curiously.

“Well, definitely me, but I don’t know about you two,” Steve says, quietly.

“No way in hell you’re not going into a fight without me,” James says, fiercely, his mouth locked in a snarl.

Toni peers at him in surprise – she’s never known him to be so gung-ho for a fight in all the years she’s known him.

She worries her teeth on her lower lip.

“If you’re going to fight an alien god with magic,” she exhales. “Then, I’m not going to let you go alone.”

James rounds on her. “No,” he says, decisively.

Toni arches an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“No. You’re not fighting an alien god with magic,” James declares.

Toni’s mouth pinches in a taut line. “Exactly why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s too dangerous,” James retorts.

“I fly a mechanical, weaponised suit of armour. Outside the armour, I am a trained assassin with a diluted version of your super-soldier serum. Exactly why would it be so dangerous?” Toni demands.

“Wait… Iron Woman,” Steve says, suddenly, looking at her with a whole new interest, not all of it good. “ _You’re_ Iron Woman?”

Toni turns to him, her mouth curving like a scythe. “ _I’m_ Iron Woman,” she tells him, her voice clean and clear. She rounds on James. “You don’t get to bench me because you suddenly feel uncomfortable about me being in danger. I’ve been in danger my entire life and you never had a fucking problem with it. What’s suddenly changed now?”

“You clearly have forgotten the last two years,” James scoffs, full of scorn.

“I have _not_ ,” Toni snaps. “All I’m saying is that if you can go and face off against Loki with just a fucking rifle and your fists, there should be absolutely no problem with me fighting him. My armour, no offence to both of you, is capable of a hell of a lot more than anything either of you can do. You aren’t benching. I’m not _letting_ you bench me. You don’t have the right to bench me.”

James reels back, shock covering his eyes like a sheen, even hurt.

Regret bands around her throat for a moment, as if warning her to shut the fuck up, right about now, but she ignores it.

“I get it, you two are the big, strong men with the uber-strength and the uber-guns-”

“Actually, I don’t carry a gun,” Steve interjects.

Toni sends him a look like steel. “Totally not my point,” she fires back. She rounds on James. “I get that you think you’re the big bad villain, and you could take everything that comes at you, and maybe, this is even some sort of penance because HYDRA made you go out and kill people, but guess what, Yasha? I was right there with you; I was right there _killing_ people with you. If you’re a big, bad villain, so am I. And you know what else, I am a hundred of both of you in that armour, and you know it. You know that I can do this; you know I can fight Loki, that I am a match for an alien god, and I don’t know if it’s because you’re scared to lose me now that I’m facing something that is not human or because you want to prove to your long-lost BFF that you are still the sort of guy that thinks his dame needs to be protected, but I don’t care. I really don’t. SHIELD called us _both_ in, not just you. I am not going to stand back and let the big, strong men fight my battles for me, not when a lot more than just the people I love in this world are at stake, not when the entire fucking world is at stake. You don’t get to treat me like some perfect little doll, sitting in a display case, never to be touched, never to be taken out, never to be when you’re the one getting cold feet. I’ve been doing dangerous things my entire life, and I’m okay with that. _You’re_ the one who has a problem.”

James shakes his head. “That’s… that’s not what I meant at _all_ ,” he says, almost aghast that she would come that conclusion.

Toni lifts a hand up to silence him. “I don’t care. You deal with it, and then, you come and talk to me.”

She flees the room, and suddenly, feels marginally better when she escapes those blue eyes of Steve Rogers.

* * *

Natasha finds her alone in the conference sometime later, her head on the table.

“Did you and James have a fight?” she asks, her voice coming out low and soothing, as she takes a seat beside her and curls a hand around the nape of her neck. “What’s wrong, _malina moya_?”

Toni looks up, her eyes swollen and heavy. “Is it bad that I don’t really like Steve Rogers?”

Natasha leans back, curious all of a sudden. “Why not?”

“Well, first, I think he’s a judgmental _ass_ ,” Toni huffs, running a hand through her hair. “Two-”

“You don’t like the way that he looks at James, nor do you like the way that James looks at him,” Natasha says, simply.

Toni eyes her. “I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t do the psychoanalysis shtick on each other,” she points out.

“This wasn’t psychoanalysis; frankly, it’s all over your face,” Natasha says, with a shrug of her shoulders.

Toni takes a deep and steadying breath. “I can’t forget what Peggy said, all those years ago.”

Natasha frowns. “What did she say?”

“It was… it was when we first came back, you know, and we were just starting out in that little town, and the longer that Yasha went without being wiped, the more he’d remember,” Toni explains. “I knew he was remembering more and more; he was dreaming a lot, nightmares, and I got him through it, of course, but he didn’t talk to me about it. He didn’t want to talk to me about it; it was like he was protecting me from some deep, dark secret. So, I left.”

Natasha’s face flickers with surprise. She hadn’t been expecting that, the perfect, soulmated couple breaking up, even briefly.

“I went to stay with Peggy for a little while, her and Sharon. And Peggy, she said this thing… she said… she started talking about Steve and Yasha, what they were like before-before everything. She said… she said she would’ve guessed that _they_ were soulmates, that’s how close they were. She said they looked like soulmates. And I…”

“Now, you’re jealous,” Natasha decides.

“I’m not. I’m not jealous,” Tony snaps. “I’m not.”

“Really?” Natasha says, dubiously.

“I just… I look at him; I look at Steve Rogers and I look at the way that Yasha looks at Steve Rogers, and I look at the way they look at each other. That’s love, that’s real fucking love, the kind of love that destroys you when you lose them, and a part of me feels like… feels like maybe this was a mistake, maybe the universe made a mistake with Yasha and me. Maybe it was always supposed to be him and Yasha. Maybe it was never supposed to be me and him. Maybe it was always supposed to be _them_.”

Toni’s throat flexes, and she looks away.

“That’s dumb,” Natasha declares.

Toni rounds on her, her eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”

“Look, I remember what it was like being a child around the two of you-”

Toni’s face scrunches up in disgust. “That wasn’t something I needed to remember.”

“I remember how you looked at each other back then, back before there was anything substantial between you two. I’ve seen you now, since I defected, the way he looks at you, the way you look at him. That was no mistake, Toni,” Natasha says, severely.

“Shared trauma breeds unhealthy relationships,” Toni says, her voice terse and clipped.

“That’s bullshit,” Natasha scoffs, her face full of scorn. “He loves you, you love him; the two of you were made for each other, like puzzle pieces coming together or galaxies colliding.”

Toni’s lips twist. “I never thought you were a romantic,” she murmurs.

Natasha’s lean, long fingers thread into her hair. “I am a lot of things, _malina moya_.”

“I love you too, you know,” she tells Natasha. “I love you in a different but just as significant and impossible way. You know that, right?”

Natasha’s smile quivers, just the slightest. “I didn’t actually,” she says, clearing her throat. “I didn’t know that.”

Toni peers at her.

“They used to tell me… you know, back in the Red Room, they used to say that love is for children,” Natasha says, thoughtfully. “I always believed that. I’ve seen… I’ve seen so much blood and horror and death and abuse born out of love, so I thought I should never get involved in such a thing, because I didn’t want to get caught up in it, because I didn’t… I didn’t want anything to sway me.”

“And now?” Toni pushes, her lungs climbing into her throat.

“Now,” Natasha levels her with a measured look. “There is plenty here to sway me.”

Natasha doesn’t have to say the words, the actual, three words; Toni understands enough.

She leans in and brushes her lips against hers, just for a moment.

When they pull back, Natasha is staring at her. “I think you’re being dumb,” she declares.

“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Toni says, dryly.

“I’m just saying… James loves you; he looks at you like you paint the sun into the sky every single day. I mean… James… I’m not saying this in a jealous, I wish I had that with you kind of way, by the way, I’m just saying… you are epic for him. You are the great love story, the love story to end all love stories-”

Toni arches an eyebrow. “You mean the part where he kidnaps me to service a Nazi agenda while being brainwashed and tortured into compliance, and I’m raised as an assassin for a totalitarian, fascist agenda, and we kill people together until we get so sick of the abuse that we run away together? Is that the love story you’re talking about?”

Natasha’s scowl deepens. “No, I’m talking about the fact that, despite that Nazi, totalitarian, fascist organisation that was abusing you, the two of you still managed to find each other, fall in love, _be_ together, _love_ each other so much that you ran away together, so you could save each other from any more abuse.” Her voice is low, laced with honey. “I mean, I’ve seen James for a long time, Toni. That man’s heart _beats_ for you. To him, you are perfect, you are everything. I mean…” Her heart flips, and Toni can see it in her eyes. “You turn his _world_.”

Toni is suddenly swelling with so much that her chest hurts. She turns her head before Natasha can see how much she’s affected her.

“Yeah?” she manages to say, her voice strangled.

Natasha tangles her hand with Toni’s. “Yeah,” she says, softly.

“Thank you for saying that,” Toni offers.

Natasha shrugs with a faint smile. “This thing we have, the three of us, it works for me, you know? I… it just works for me. I want to keep it. I don’t want to lose it.”

Toni knocks her forehead against Natasha’s. “You won’t,” she promises. She pulls back, settling firmly in her chair. “So, do you want to explain a little bit more about what’s going on here?”

“I was in Russia,” Natasha tells her. “On a mission, when I got the call from Phil. There was… an incident at one of the SHIELD bases. SHIEDL was… you know, they had the Tesseract, right? That your father, once he fished it out of the ocean, he handed it over to SHIELD?”

Toni nods, warily.

“They were doing thigs with it; they were experimenting with it, if I have to stop hedging. And suddenly, there were all these readings they couldn’t understand, and there was this blast of energy, and this guy was standing right next to the Tesseract, appeared out of nowhere. He was wearing this strange armour and carried this sceptre, and he called himself Loki. He said he was taking the Tesseract and when agents tried to stop him, he either killed them outright, or he used the sceptre on them.”

Toni shifts uneasily. “What did the sceptre do?”

Natasha chews on her lower lip, her mouth twisted in displeasure. “It took control of their minds, turned them onto Loki’s side.”

Toni feels that dark, acid chill seep through her, and all she thinks of is HYDRA.

“That doesn’t sound pleasant,” she rasps.

“Quite,” Natasha replies in the same tone, and her face is equally hollowed out by the prospect. She wrings her hands together on her lap. “One of the guys that Loki took with him was Clint.”

Cold, gaping dread opens up in the pit of her stomach. “Oh, Tasha, I’m so sorry.” She reaches out and squeezes her hand.

Natasha squeezes back in gratitude. “He just… he took Clint, and there was nothing that any of us could do to stop him. He took Clint, and Clint was _fighting_ for him, and I’m… that terrifies me,” she confesses. “That legitimately terrifies me because what if Loki gets his hands on you or me or James, the three of us who know what it’s like to have someone open us up, unspool our brains and put whatever they want back inside. And it makes me want to throw up.”

Toni leans forward. “Is that why you didn’t tell us what was going on before we got here?”

Natasha nods, a jerky, aborted motion of her head.

“It was because I didn’t think you would come if you knew that mind control was involved-”

“I would’ve,” Toni cuts in, so she knows.

“This is also scary,” Natasha admits. “It’s nothing… I mean, I deal with mobs and gangsters and arms dealers and drug dealers and terrorists. I can deal with them. This is… this is above my pay grade. The other reason is that… frankly… well, I didn’t think you would let James come.”

Toni leans back, arching an eyebrow, and reeling from the words. “I don’t… what are you implying exactly?”

“You always spoke. I remember, when I was growing up. It was always you that spoke,” Natasha comments, casually.

“And?” Toni demands.

Natasha shakes her head. “I don’t know if it’s because he preferred that you speak for the both of you, even when you two were together, or because you thought it best that _you_ spoke but-”

“When I was fifteen, we went on mission to kill Peggy Carter. Is that in your files? Did you know about that?”

Natasha falls silent and nods, carefully.

“We failed, because Peggy is scarily competent, but it was my fault that we failed. She told me later that he carried me out of there like some knight in shining armour without even a second glance back at her, his target. He pulled a bullet out of me in a dirty hotel room and gave me a blood transfusion.”

Natasha’s eyes dawn with realisation. “That’s how you got the serum,” she reasons, quickly.

Toni nods. “Can you imagine how HYDRA reacted when we returned to the base?”

Natasha’s face tightens. She knows exactly how they would’ve reacted – the exact same way the Red Room would have reacted.

“He was hurt because of me,” Toni explains, gruffly. “I never want him to get hurt again because of me, do you understand me? So, yes, maybe I think if I speak for both of us, I’m the one who’s more likely to bear the consequences in the end. I’m okay with that, as long as it keeps him safe.”

“Does he know?” Natasha asks, bemused. “Does he know that you’ve been his shield this entire time?”

Toni snorts. “Of course not. You’ve met Yasha. Does he seem like the type to _let_ me shield him?” She sighs. “And now, the complete opposite is working against me. Now, he thinks _I’m_ the one who needs to be shielded by him.”

“He loves you, and he just wants to see you safe, the same way you feel about him,” Natasha points out.

“I know that,” Toni huffs. “I just…”

“You know, you got hurt while you were with HYDRA, and maybe, he thought it was his fault, just like you think it was your fault when he got hurt. Maybe you two are just the same and you’re fighting each other for no reason,” Natasha points out.

There’s a knock on the door.

Toni and Natasha look up, and Steve pokes his head inside.

“Sorry, uh, they’ve got a location on Loki,” he tells them, awkwardly.

His eyes drag down to the way that Natasha and Toni’s hands are tangled together over the table, how close their heads are together, how their bodies are angled towards one another, and Toni can see the million, different things that pass through his eyes.

He smiles, but it’s no smile at all, one that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“They want us to get going,” he says, lightly.

“Yeah, of course,” Toni says and stands. She looks down at Natasha. “You coming?”

“Of course,” Natasha says, smugly, standing up as well. “I’m driving.”

* * *

When Toni and Natasha emerge into the Quinjet hangar, Steve and James are waiting for them. Steve is in his Captain America uniform, all blue and red and white, bright stars, and the sight of him blinds Toni’s eyes, and not in a fun way, but more in an indecipherable, monumental way. James has his combat gear in, decked out in black Kevlar from top to bottom. He has a Kalashnikov rifle strapped to his back, but he’s missing the mask, the muzzle that once covered half of his face.

She goes breathless at the sight.

She hasn’t seen that look on him since they appeared on Peggy’s doorstep fifteen years ago. But he looks like it fits him perfectly, like he never stopped wearing it – she doesn’t know how to react to that, how to react to the fact that the things that HYDRA gave them fit like a second skin.

She’s in her armour, so she clunks forward with every step, her helmet in her hands, her hair tight against in her scalp in a braid, tucked underneath the plating of her armour without catching in any of the grooves.

“Hi,” James says, awkwardly, when they come up to him.

“Hi,” Toni replies just as awkwardly.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Natasha mutters under her breath. “You both are ridiculous.”

“Do you mind?” James snaps at her.

“Yeah, I do, because we’re about to go and fight a magical alien god and the two of you are so wrapped up in each other, _like always_ ,” Natasha retorts. “Look, you love her, he loves you, you love each other and you want to keep each other safe, but this world _sucks_. Hell, you taught me that, both of you. This world sucks and you can’t keep each other safe, you can’t protect each other from all the bad in the world, and you definitely cannot bench each other because you’re sacred; all you can do is have each other’s backs. Do we really need to have this conversation again?”

“To be fair, she’s got a point,” Toni mutters, her mouth twisting with displeasure.

“I don’t _want_ to bench you,” James asserts. “I guess I’m just worried. This is aliens and space and magic and shit. This seems worse than anything that we’ve ever dealt with, and I just…”

“I know, I’m scared too,” Toni says, gently, curling a hand around his arm. “I’m scared for you, and I’m scared for myself, and isn’t it just better for us to have each other’s backs out there?”

James stares at her, all soft and soulful, and then, he’s draping an arm around Toni’s shoulders and pulling her close to his chest.

He brushes his mouth against her hair.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, gently.

“Okay, enough of this lovey-dovey stuff,” Natasha says, ducking the swipe that James makes for her head with his free hand. “Get in the damn Quinjet.”

* * *

Toni watches from the cockpit of the Quinjet, with Natasha, as Loki saunters out of the museum, his hand covered in blood.

He’s handsome, tall and slight, with dark hair that looks greasy in the light, a pointed face, with bright green eyes. He walks like he owns the world, but he is still greedy and grasping for more.

It almost seems like a shift of the light, because armour materialises over his body, in green and gold, accompanied by a helmet, horned and curved and sharp like it could cut through bodies just as well as any knife.

The police show up, of course, the sirens blaring, cutting red and blue lights across the scene, but Loki considers them calmly, blasting them with no hesitation, flipping the over like pancakes on a broiling pan.

“Kneel before me,” Loki declares, loudly, through the speaker in the Quinjet.

The crowd ignores him, in different states of hysteria. Suddenly, another Loki appears, appearing out of thin air, and then another, and another, ephemeral and glittering, crowding in the crowd, baring their teeth in razor lines as a grin, raising their spears and cornering the crowd.

“I said, _kneel_!” Loki roars.

The hysteria dies, the whole crowd quietens, and they kneel before him.

“Miserable, fucking prick,” Toni declares. She looks over her shoulders, fixing Steve with a look. “You should be ready to drop.”

Steve nods, stiffly, shield raised.

Loki leans back, stretching out his arms, the picture of smugness planted right across his face.

“Is not this simpler?” he asks, soft as cotton candy, tooth-rotting and ephemeral. “Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Toni says, flatly, leaning forward. She turns to Natasha. “If I don’t get to cut out his liver, I’m going to be very disappointed,” she tells her, and then, she pauses. “Assuming, of course, aliens where he comes from have livers.”

Natasha hushes her, turning a stern gaze onto the speaker delivering every word of Loki’s exchange with the people below in the square.

“The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”

As everyone in the crowd ducks their head in response to Loki’s words, shaking with fear rather than acceptance, it is an elderly German man who refuses to kneel and stands, shoulders thrown back.

“Not to men like you,” he declares.

Loki arches an eyebrow, his lip curling a little sharply. “There are no men like me,” he tells him, solemn as the grave and plenty patronising.

The old man stares him down, as if finding this man, this alien god, _wanting_.

Brave or perhaps stupid, Toni doesn’t quite know.

“There are always men like you,” the old replies simply.

Loki’s face curdles like sour milk, and his scowl deepens. “Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example.”

Loki raises his sceptre, and the man doesn’t flinch. A bolt of light shoots from the sceptre, and Toni clenches her hands hard around the console of the Quinjet. Before she can even think of moving from her seat, the bolt clangs hard against a shield, and Captain America is emerging from behind, stalwart and blue in his uniform.

The blast ricochets off his shield and swings back to clobber Loki around the head, sending him flying onto his ass.

“You know,” Steve says, casually, his mouth turned down at the corners. “The last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.”

Loki climbs to his feet and swipes at his shoulder, grimacing at the dirt that lines his armour. When he peers at Steve, his face changes, somehow becomes delighted.

“The solider, a man out of time,” Loki says, gleefully.

Steve glowers at him. “I’m not the one who's out of time.”

The Quinjet appears from the clouds, a machine gun pointed towards Loki.

“Loki, drop the weapon and stand down,” Natasha orders into the speaker.

Loki’s smile flickers, and he raises the spear. Toni’s eyes widen, and she grabs the navigation control just in time before the spear’s energy hits the jet. Natasha almost falls out of her chair, if not for Toni’s reflexes. A hand lashes out and grabs her by the scuff of her uniform, bringing her back into the seat, as Toni navigates back into the clouds.

“I’m going to bring it down again,” she tells James, looking over her shoulder. “Get on the roof. He’s going to need your help.”

James nods, stiffly, his brow creased in concern, and he raises his sniper rifle, hefting it over his shoulder, and opens up a hatch in the Quinjet.

He jumps up, climbing through the hole, and Toni hears a thump, as James makes his perch.

“Okay, I’m going to bring it down,” Toni mutters and pushes the lever down, the Quinjet breaking through the cloud barrier.

When it comes through, Toni peers down below, sees as Loki flings Steve down to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Steve grunts and lifts his head, and then, he flings the shield at Loki, like it’s a frisbee. Loki scoffs and bats it away with the edge of his sceptre. Steve lunges for him with a roar and throws punches and desperate kicks, the hard, muscled moves of a boxer, but to no avail, when he’s knocked down easily by Loki.

He ends up on his knees, and Loki has the bottom of his spear pressed up against the nape of his neck, under the thick material of his cowl.

“Kneel,” Loki snarls.

“Not today!” Steve snarls right back at him.

He’s flipping himself through the air and kicking the alien god right in the face. Loki grunts and scutters back, the base of the spear halting his fall. He reaches his hands out and knocks Steve back again, sending him skidding back against the gravel.

A bullet fires from the roof of the Quinjet, aiming for Loki’s eye, but Loki twists his head at the last minute, catching between his index finger and thumb, squeezing until the bullet crumbles like paste between his fingers. He smiles, an upward tilt of his thin, pale lips, baring the razor line of his teeth, and his eyes fly up skyward, to land on the Quinjet, at the shadow he must be able to see hovering on top of the jet.

He thrusts the spear forward, and thin, gleaming bolt of energy discharges from the edge, in their direction.

“Fuck,” Natasha says and veers the jet out of the way, just before the energy makes contact.

There’s a thump, and Toni looks up.

“Are you okay, Yasha?” she calls out.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I just got knocked over,” James says, breathlessly.

“The guy’s all over the place,” Natasha mutters.

“Oh, fuck this,” Toni declares and jumps to her feet, stalking through the bowel of the jet.

“What are you doing?” Natasha calls after her.

“Fixing this,” Toni says, scathingly.

She finds the armour in its case mounted against the wall. The glass parts as if recognising her, and she dons it quickly, locking the plating around her.

“What are you doing?”

Toni looks over, only to find James peering through the hatch in the roof, his hair damp, his goggles off, turning his skin a little red where the imprint was left.

“He needs help,” she says, firmly. “Do you want me to stay up here, let him get killed and then, let the alien terrorist get away?”

“No, but-”

“Remember what we talked about,” she says, lowering her voice to a sharp, dangerous tone. “I am probably the only person around here that can stand up to him. Are you really going to bench me when Steve Rogers’ life is on the line?”

James’ expression wars hard, his love for Steve and his love for her conflicting in one, big mess.

“Fine,” he grinds out.

And then, Toni throws herself out of the jet to the beat of _Shoot to Thrill_.

“Did you seriously hack the speakers?” Natasha demands through the comm.

Toni smiles. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” she teases.

Below, Steve and Loki both look up at the sound of music, at the streak of light through the dark sky. Her repulsors glow bright, hot and white, and a blast from them sends Loki flying, hitting the ground with a dull smack.

Iron Woman touches down, fist to the ground, on one knee, head bowed, and then, she’s sliding to her feet, with all the grace of a cat, every piece of weaponry the suit has crawling out of the plating, just to show Loki what he’s up against.

“Make your move, Reindeer Games,” she taunts, with that shrill mechanical edge that the armour delivers.

Loki’s face morphs into something disgusted and furious, his lip curling up sharply, something dark and shifting in his gaze.

Then, he raises his hands in surrender.

The weapons climb back into the armour.

“Good move,” Toni comments.

Steve climbs to his feet, panting. “Ms Stark,” he says, formally, as if they hadn’t already met.

_Well, then._

“Captain,” Toni replies, thin and taut.


	21. xxi.

Toni and Steve and James watch Loki from a distance, who sits there on one of the Quinjet’s benches, serene and somewhat content with his situation, hands bound together and folded in his lap.

“I don’t like it,” Steve says, his mouth thinning.

“What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily?” Toni snorts.

James just remains stubbornly silent, his rifle raised, the barrel of which pointed at Loki.

“Yasha, is that really needed?” she asks, exasperated.

“He’s a prick, and he’s already killed dozens of people. I’m not taking any chances,” is James’ reply, and unfortunately, it’s not one that she can argue well against.

“I don't remember it being ever that easy. This guy packs a wallop,” Steve mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Still, you are pretty spry, for an older fellow,” Toni comments. “It doesn’t look like the ice slowed you down at all. Of course, if you are feeling a little slow, I hear Pilates is good for the blood flow?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve demands, his eyes widening in offence.

“It's like calisthenics,” she says, with only the slightest amount of bite in her voice. “You might have missed a couple things, you know, sleeping with the fishes.”

Steve rounds on her. “I thought Fury didn’t want you engaging,” he says, as if he’s trying to shame her into shame.

“Yeah, well,” Toni snorts, derisively. “There's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you.”

Thunder and lightning crack against the jet, hitting like with the sharp sound of a whip and making the entire jet shake violently.

“Tasha?” Toni calls out.

“I don’t know where this is coming from,” Natasha replies, frustration bleeding into the edge of her voice.

James’ hand curls around her wrist, and Toni looks up, questioningly. He nods at Loki, who is staring out of the window, his gaze intent and somehwta disturbed.

“What’s the matter?” Steve calls out, almost taunting. “Scared of a little lightning?”

Loki turns to them, a placid look on his face, but his mouth twists in displeasure soon after. “I'm not overly fond of what follows.”

The four in the jet are left to stare at their prisoner, and then, there’s a thump, a loud, dull thump that hits the roof of the jet, as if someone’s landing there, and then, the back of the jet gives away, and a man climbs through.

It’s no mere man, though, because he was able to pull apart the jet like it was made of cotton candy, and he stalks through the Quinjet like a man on a mission, in red and gold armour and a cape that flutters back, damp with rain.

He has dark gold hair, down to the middle of his shoulders, half of it tied back, and a strong, handsome face with blue eyes.

Toni steps forward, before anyone else can, in an attempt to play mediator, and Thor doesn’t think twice, grabs her by the shoulder with surprising strength and throws her against the wall.

And then, before James can raise his gun or Steve can launch himself at him, Thor grabs Loki by the throat and throws himself out of the jet.

Steve and Toni and James are left slack jawed at the incident.

“What the… what the fuck was that?” she demands, her voice thin in her own ears.

It’s been a long time since someone grabbed her like that; she’d forgotten how much she hated it.

“Another Asgardian?” Natasha offers, her voice drowned out by the sharp sound of the rain hitting the window.

Toni shakes her head. “Fuck that,” she declares, putting her helmet back on.

“Think the guy’s a friendly?” Steve asks, worriedly.

Toni clunks over to the edge of the gaping hole at the back of the Quinjet.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies, her voice clipped. “If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost.”

Toni turns and braces herself for the jump.

“Ms Stark, we need a plan of attack!” Steve shouts after her.

“I have a plan,” Toni says, simply, shedding the skin of an operative (Iron Woman is all radiance and gold, and the gold never stops). “Attack.”

“Toni, don’t you _dare_ ,” James warns.

“I’m sorry,” Toni demands. “But do you see any other way of getting the alien prisoner back?”

James opens his mouth to protest, but Toni chooses to throw herself out of the jet instead.

It takes her some time, but she finds Thor and Loki exchanging angry words on the edge of a cliff.

She drops down on the hill behind them and she takes her helmet off.

“Excuse me, I hate to interrupt… whatever this is, but he’s my prisoner and I’d like to take him back to where we were keeping him,” she says, faultlessly polite, keeping her hands behind her back for full measure.

Thor rounds on her, his expression furious, and then, his face abruptly changes when he gets a good look on her.

“You’re a woman,” he says, almost surprised.

Toni smiles. “I am a woman.”

“I did not realise,” Thor says, almost apologetically.

“You mean when you shoved me?” she asks, with just a hint of bite to her words.

Thor turns red, and beside him, Loki laughs a little, short and sharp.

“Forgive my brother, Lady Stark, he often does not know his own strength in battle. He is a brute, in truth, and even women are not safe from his violence,” Loki taunts.

Thor wheels on Loki and seizes him by the throat, his face cast in rage, that only smoothens out when he sees Loki choking visibly, eyes bugging out of his head.

“Can you please not kill him?” she asks. “We kind of need him for things.”

Thor abruptly releases Loki, and then, slams his fist hard into the side of Loki’s head, knocking him unconscious.

“He won’t be able to disappear,” Thor advises her, when she raises an eyebrow. “He is good at that.”

“You can’t take him away,” Toni says, fixing him with a careful, measured look.

Thor shakes his head. “He is not of this world, my lady. His power is not meant for this land. Let me take him back to Asgard, and he will be of no issue to you any further.”

“He’s taken the Tesseract,” Toni points out. “And turned very good people into his puppets. He’s hurt Earth. Do you really think that he should be going back to Asgard with you when he has harmed so many people here?”

Thor’s face twists. “He is my brother.”

“And he’s killed eighty people already,” Toni says, landing on the same level of the cliff as Thor, sauntering towards him. “Let us have our justice before you take him with you. We need the Tesseract; we need him to… reverse what he’s done to all those people. They are good people. They deserve better than to be just abandoned.”

“You are no match for Loki, Lady Stark, even with your curious armour,” Thor says, gently.

“Are you sure about that? Because I knocked him pretty well when we met,” she taunts.

“It is not the same, not when there will be a war, and there will be one.”

“Will the war stop just because you take Loki away?” Toni asks, patiently.

Thor grimaces. “No, it will come anyway. What Loki has set in motion cannot be stopped by anyone, even Loki.”

“And the Tesseract?”

“He says he has sent it off, but he knows not where,” Thor says, frustration bleeding into his voice.

“Then, maybe, wouldn’t it be better for us to work together? To solve this?” Toni asks, pointedly. “To fix this.”

Thor chews on his lower lip, a remarkably human gesture for one who is not, and then, he nods.

* * *

Toni, James, Steve, Bruce Banner, Thor and Natasha watch from the main control room on the Helicarrier, as Fury meets with Loki, who seems stubbornly pleased despite his detention in a glass-walled cell.

“ _In case it's unclear_ ,” Fury begins, stepping up to some controls right in front of the cell. “ _You try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass_ -”

Fury presses a button which opens up a hatch underneath Loki’s cell.

Loki peers as much as he can from the glass, seeing the drop from the cell to the where Loki might land.

“ _Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?_ ”

Fury closes the hatch, points at Loki. “ _Ant_.” And then, he points at the button which would drop Loki into the steel trap. “ _Boot_.”

Loki’s lip curls up in a smirk. “ _It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me_.”

Fury’s lips purse thin. “ _Built for something a lot stronger than you_.”

Without trying too hard, Toni’s eyes flit towards Dr Banner, realising him as the subject of Fury’s comment.

“ _Oh, I’ve heard_.” Loki looks into the camera, somehow knowing that they’re listening to him. “ _The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?_ ”

Fury lifts an eyebrow. “ _How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control._ ” His voice grows hotter as he continues. “ _You talk about peace and you kill ‘cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did_.”

“ _Ooh. It burns you come so close_ ,” Loki says, slyly. “ _To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is_.”

Fury smiles, showing a hint of his teeth. “ _Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something_.”

Fury walks off, leaving Loki in his glass cell.

Loki keeps smirking at the camera.

And then, the monitor goes blank.

Toni hazards a look at Thor, who looks absolutely miserable at whatever his brother has become. She has the sudden urge to reach out to him, to put her hand on Thor’s arm, to see if it would give him comfort.

She keeps her hands in her lap.

“He really grows on you, doesn’t he?” Dr Banner comments, his voice dry as sawdust.

Steve shakes his head. “Loki's gonna drag this out.” He looks over at Thor, whom he still regards suspiciously, having not forgiven him for the way he introduced himself to the rest of them, smashing his way through the Quinjet and stealing their prisoner (she’s beginning to think that is his default setting: suspicion; she knows he doesn’t think much more of her). “So, Thor, what's his play?”

Thor folds his arms over his chest, his biceps rippling. “He has an army called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.”

Toni takes a moment to process that, an army from outer space, an _actual_ army from outer space, like something from Doctor Who or Star Wars, and her hands clench hard around the edge of the conference table.

“An army?” Steve says, sceptically, giving voice to what she’d just been thinking. “From outer space?”

Dr Banner looks thoughtful. “So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for.”

Thor looks up, suddenly interested. “Selvig?”

“He’s an astrophysicist,” Dr Banner offers.

“He's a friend,” Thor corrects.

“Loki has him under some kind of spell,” Natasha explains, and then, she pauses. “Along with one of ours.”

“I wanna know why Loki let us take him,” Steve declares. “He's not leading an army from here.”

“I don't think we should be focusing on Loki,” Dr Banner says, derisively. “That guy's brain is a bag full of cats; you could _smell_ crazy on him.”

Thor almost immediately scowls. “Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother.”

James snorts. “Pal, he’s killed eighty people in two days; you maybe wanna get off that high horse of yours?” he asks, lifting his eyebrow in a scathing way.

Thor stares at him before looking down at himself. “What horse?”

James sighs and shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“But the iridium, what do they need the iridium for?” Dr Banner muses.

“It’s a stabilising agent,” Toni chimes in, and everyone looks at her. She stares on, steadily. “It means that the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants.” She points to a random SHIELD agent sitting at one of the monitors in the corner. “That man is playing GALAGA,” she says, suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention to that one man. “I noticed when I came in,” she offers.

Everyone stares at her, then.

She shrugs and surreptitiously places a hacking implant, the size of a button, under the desk without anyone noticing.

“The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”

When she looks up, Maria Hill is staring at her like she’s nothing more than a cockroach.

Toni just lifts an eyebrow. “I have hobbies,” she says, loftily. “And then, of course, the packet, Selvig’s notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?” she asks, a little affronted.

Steve’s mouth twists in displeasure. “Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?”

“He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Dr Banner says.

“Unless,” Toni cuts in. “Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect.”

Dr Banner fixes her with an intrigued look. “Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet,” he points out.

Toni feels her lips stretch wide in a smile, baring her teeth. “Finally,” she sighs, resting her chin on an upturned hand, elbow of which propped up on the table. “Where have you been all my life, Dr Banner?”

Dr Banner turns red, all the way to his ears.

James just glowers at her.

She turns her smile on him.

If he can flash those cow eyes of his at his not-dead best friend, then, Toni can flirt with this cute, shy doctor who speaks her language.

“Is that what just happened?” Steve mutters, determined to be a killjoy.

Toni ignores him, simply reaches over the table to shake hands with Dr Banner, staring at him through the dip of her long, dark lashes.

“It’s very nice to finally meet you, Dr Banner,” she says, softly. “Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

Dr Banner stares at her for a moment, like he can’t quite believe she just said that, that those words came out of her mouth.

“Thanks,” he says, staring down at his own feet.

 _Cute_ , she thinks.

Fury strides in at that moment. “Dr Banner is only here to track the cube,” he tells her, almost as a warning. “I was hoping you might join him.”

Toni shrugs.

“Let’s start with that stick of his,” Steve offers. “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

Fury shakes his head. “I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

Thor frowns. “Monkeys? I do not understand.”

“I do!” Steve says, suddenly, quickly, his face filling with delight, as he looks at Toni, purposefully. “I understood that reference,” he explains, lamely.

Toni rolls her eyes, while Steve looks mighty proud of himself.

She clambers to her feet, tossing Dr Banner a look. “Shall we play, doctor?” she offers.

Dr Banner offers an almost grin. “Let’s play some.”

She rounds the conference table, and he stretches out a hand, allowing her to walk ahead of him.

* * *

Toni stares at her monitors, shifting and solving as many algorithms and equations as she can, her eyes flying over her screen, as her fingers swipe them away once she’s done.

“The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process,” Dr Banner clucks his tongue.

“If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops,” Toni offers.

“All I packed was a toothbrush,” Dr Banner says, lip curling up self-deprecatingly.

Toni smiles. “You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime,” she says, loftily. “Top ten floors, all R&D. You’d love it, it’s candy land.”

“I thought you didn’t run Stark Industries anymore,” Dr Banner says, confused.

“Oh, I don’t. I gave it up something like two years ago to a friend. But I was heavily involved in the planning and construction of Stark Tower, and I do advise the CEO on matters of great importance.”

“Like?” Dr Banner raises an eyebrow.

“Pizza Fridays,” Toni says with a straight face.

Dr Banner laughs.

“Well, that and R&D,” Toni adds.

“I appreciate your offer, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke... Harlem,” Dr Banner says, awkwardly.

Toni sidles around the counter, smoothing her hand across the edge. “Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension. No surprises.”

And then, she pokes Dr Banner in the side with a miniature electrical prod.

Dr Banner yowls and jumps, and she’s cradling his jaw, staring into his eyes, searching for a hint of green.

She leans back, disappointed. “Nothing?” she says, unhappily.

“Toni!”

Toni turns around to see James and Steve storming in. James is glowering at her, his brow furrowed, his lips pinched tight and unyielding.

“Toni, you could’ve-”

“Are you nuts?” Steve asks, furiously, before James can even finish his sentence.

Toni angles her body to face him completely, her gaze cool, assessing. “Jury’s still out on that one,” she says, flatly, and returns to Dr Banner with a bright smile. “You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?” she says, approvingly. “What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” Steve demands.

“Funny things are,” Toni says, cavalierly.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny,” Steve says, his voice low and cold. “No offence, doctor,” he says, awkwardly, to Dr Banner, who just shrugs, accepting.

Toni peers at James. “Is that what you think, _krasavets_?” she asks, something dark and shifting in her gaze.

“Toni,” James shakes his head. “He could’ve killed you. He could’ve killed all of us,” he says, sternly, like she’s a child.

It gets her back up, turning her sick with anger – she wonders if this new condescension towards her is framed by the presence of Steve Rogers by his side, some new confidence and disdain towards her brought on by the reassurance that he has Steve back.

“Sorry about that, doc,” James says, pale eyes darting over to Dr Banner.

“No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things.”

Toni wags her finger. “You’re tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut.”

“And you need to focus on the problem, Ms Stark,” Steve says, his voice sharp, like flinders.

“You think I’m not?” she demands, rounding on him. “Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow, even while doubt flashes through his eyes. “You think Fury’s hiding something?”

Toni laughs, bright and hard. “He’s a spy, Captain. He’s _the_ spy. His secrets have secrets.” She swings her thumb at Dr Banner. “It's bugging him too, isn't it?”

Dr Banner flounders when both James and Steve focus their eyes on him. “Uh... I just wanna finish my work here and...” he trails off, awkwardly.

“Doctor?” Steve pushes.

A pause swells and stretches.

Finally, Dr Banner sighs. “A warm light for all mankind,” he quotes. “Loki's jab at Fury about the cube.”

Steve nods. “I heard it.”

Dr Banner looks over at Toni. “Well, I think that was meant for you,” he says, hesitantly, as if he’s wondering if he’s saying something wrong, getting into something he has no place in. “Even if Barton didn't tell him, that all over the news.”

Toni’s smile stretches wide, feline and contented, and she offers him a blueberry out of nowhere. Dr Banner just stares at the open packet for a moment, dazed, before shrugging and taking a few in his palm.

“The Stark Tower?” Steve clarifies. “That big, ugly-”

Toni stares at him, daring him to finish the sentence, her mouth pinched tight.

“…building in New York?” he finishes, clearing his throat.

Dr Banner nods. “It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?” he asks Toni.

Toni nods. “That’s just the prototype,” she explains. “I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now.”

“So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”

“I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files,” Toni says, loftily, staring down at her phone.

Steve startles at that. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice strangled. “Did you say…?”

“JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge after Stuttgart,” Toni says, loftily, waving a dismissive hand. “In a few hours, we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide.” She holds out her bag of blueberries for James and Steve. “Blueberry?” she offers, just to be polite.

She side-eyes James, who remains stoic and stares off somewhere against the wall, like he can’t even bear to look at her, or maybe, he just doesn’t know what to say to her.

She scowls and looks away herself, ignoring the way her heart thumps erratically against the arc reactor.

This is no time to be focusing on the potential end to one of the only good things in her life.

Steve shakes his head, scoffing, his voice faint with disgust. “Yet you're confused about why they didn’t want you around?” he asks, sceptically.

Toni narrows her eyes. “An intelligence organisation that fears intelligence? Historically, _not_ awesome.”

“I think Loki’s trying to wind us up,” Steve says, stubbornly. “This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them,” he says, earnestly, like he’s the picture-perfect soldier and this is one of his inspirational speeches he might have given a troop of men seventy years ago.

But Toni isn’t one of his men; she has followed plenty of orders in her time and hated every man and woman who gave her those orders.

“Following is not really my style,” she says, baring a hint of teeth at him, sharp and slow.

Steve returns her smile, a mocking sort of quirk of his lips. “And you're all about style, aren't you?” he taunts.

Toni blinks at him, slow and wide, notes that James remains silent, while Toni and Steve begin this sort of altercation.

“Of all the people in this room,” she says, softly, spitefully, leaning forward. “Which one is: A, wearing a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?”

Steve reels back, offended, ready to open his mouth and attack her with something else, when Dr Banner, or rather, Bruce, she should call him, intervenes, stepping in between the two.

“Steve,” Bruce says, softly. “Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?”

Steve angles his body to face the doctor, processes what he’s saying, and then chews on his lip, the dip between his brow furrowing, as if he wants to believe them, as if there’s some sense in what Bruce is saying, but as an obedient soldier, he shakes it off.

“Just find the cube,” he says, sternly, and walks out of the lab.

James lingers behind.

“What?” she snaps at him. “You want to add to the insults, or…?”

James snorts. “Oh, come on, don’t pretend like you weren’t baiting him as much as he was baiting you.”

“He started it!” she protests.

“Yeah, but you joined in,” James points out.

“So, what, I’m just supposed to lie down and take it when your best friend decides that he finds me utterly objectionable as a person and a partner for his best friend. Fuck that. He’s a dick, and he deserves everything that I throw at him,” she says, scathingly. “And if you can’t defend me, if you’re just going to stand there and watch him say this shit to me, without even knowing me at all, mind you, then, I have absolutely no use for you right now. Leave me alone.”

James’ face crumples with hurt. “Toni,” he says, softly.

“Just…”

Suddenly, she feels heavy, her entire body hefting the weight of a graveyard.

“Just go away, Yasha. Leave me to do my work,” she finally says, swallowing past the little knot that forms at the base of her throat.

James sends her one of those soft, maudlin looks of his and leaves the room, and Toni is left staring after him just for a moment, before she breaks the gaze and delivers a heart-stopping, bright smile towards Bruce.

“The guy’s not wrong about Loki,” Bruce points out, looking somewhat awkward by the domestic he’d been forced to listen to just then. “He does have the jump on us.”

“What he’s got is an ACME dynamite kit,” Toni snorts. “It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does.”

Bruce offers a pale copy of a smile, half-hearted and unenthusiastic. “And I'll read all about it.”

Toni makes a face. “Or, you’ll be suiting up like the rest of us,” she points out.

Bruce laughs, thin and taut. “Ah, see. I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare,” he says, with that acid rush of self-loathing that Toni knows all too well.

Toni presses her hip against the table, preventing him from escaping her. “You know my story?” she asks him, pointedly.

Bruce’s face blanches, turns uncomfortable in a matter of moments, as like most people do, especially men, when they think about that press conference where she came out as a victim of human trafficking, which is the only civilian explanation they could’ve possibly given without inciting a world-wide panic about resurrected Nazi organisations.

“That’s a lie, that’s not what happened,” Toni explains, without missing a beat.

Bruce’s face flickers with surprise.

She rolls up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing her wrist which has in clear, black lettering, the name, _James Buchanan Barnes_.

“Oh,” Bruce says, the realisation dawning in his eyes.

“James… he was kidnapped by HYDRA after he fell from a train in 1945. They tortured him, brainwashed him, turned him into their own personal assassin called the Winter Soldier, sent him out to kill all the people that HYDRA didn’t like. And then, on 29 May 1970, his wrist burned and my named appeared on the skin. So, like an obedient soldier, he goes to show his handler the new tattoo; the handler realises what this means, and HYDRA sends him to collect me. I was raised by HYDRA and the Winter Soldier, raised to be a killer for their purposes. The Engineer, they called me. And then, two decades later, we escaped. So, all the things that I can do, the armour that I built, the skill that I have with weapons and with hurting people, that all came from HYDRA.” She offers him a thin, soft smile. “And then, on top of that, I have a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. It’s almost killed me a few times too.” She taps the arc reactor in her chest, a nervous gesture more than anything. “This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armour, just like the knowledge, the skill that HYDRA trained me to have. It's a... terrible privilege.”

“But you can control it,” Bruce points out, gently.

“Because I learned how,” Toni retorts, slowly.

“It’s different,” Bruce says, shaking his head, turning his attention back to the computer screen in front of him.

Toni bats the screen aside, so she can face him again. “Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have _killed_ you.”

Bruce frowns at her. “So you’re saying that the Hulk... the other guy... saved my life?” he says, incredulously. “That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?”

Toni just smiles. “I guess we’ll find out.”

She returns to her own computer.

“You might not like that,” Bruce says, after a moment, hesitant.

“You just might,” Toni shoots back.

* * *

Suddenly, Fury is storming into the laboratory, and Toni immediately stops working, peering at him over the edge of her computer.

“What are you doing, Ms Stark?” Fury demands, practically spitting with rage.

Toni makes a disgruntled face, resting her elbows on the edge of the monitor. “Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you.”

Fury’s scowl deepens. “You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract,” he says, pointedly.

“We are,” Bruce chimes in. “The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile.”

“And you’ll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss.” She peers at her monitor. “Tell me something, Nick, what is Phase 2?” she demands, slyly.

A loud clatter draws their attention, only to find Steve and James at the nearest table by the door, with a large gun on the table, which must have caused the noise, both of them infuriated, judging by the expressions on their faces.

“Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons,” Steve says, coldly. His eyes dart to Tony. “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow.”

Toni watches Fury’s throat flexes, as he’s now effectively cornered. “Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-”

“I’m sorry, Nick,” Toni calls out, almost amused, turning the computer screen to face the rest of the room so that everyone can see the plans of the weapons that SHIELD had intended to create using the Tesseract. “What were you lying?”

“I was wrong, Director,” Steve says, solemn as the grave, with that disappointing edge to his tone that would make any lesser person feel two inches tall. “The world hasn't changed a bit.”

At that moment, Thor and Natasha walk into the lab. Natasha keeps her eyes right on Bruce, watching him like one would watch a predator. Bruce stares right back at her, undaunted, even angry.

“Did you know about this?” he demands.

“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?” Natasha asks, patiently, folding her arms over her chest.

Bruce chuckles, a harsh, grating sound. “I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed,” he says, derisively.

“Loki’s manipulating you,” Natasha says, gently, stressing the words out.

Bruce snorts. “And you’ve been doing what exactly?”

Natasha smiles, slow and sharp, a lethal curl of her plump, pink mouth. “You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you,” she taunts.

“Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction,” Bruce says, firmly.

“Because of him,” Fury says, simply, pointing at Thor.

Thor reels back, stunned. “Me?”

“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town,” Fury says, patiently. “We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

Thor shakes his head. “My people want nothing but peace with your planet,” he protests.

“But you’re not the only people out there, are you?” Fury barks, like a building crumbling to the ground. “And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled.”

James lifts an eyebrow. “Like you controlled the cube?” he says, derisively.

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war,” Thor says, slowly, carefully.

Steve perks up. “A higher form?”

“You forced our hand,” Fury challenges. “We had to come up with something.”

“Nuclear deterrent,” Toni mutters. “Yeah, ‘cause that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you’re a billionaire today, Stark?” Fury demands.

“I inherited it,” Toni says, plainly, her mouth pinched tight.

“I’m sure if Ms Stark had bothered to get involve with her company, she would be neck deep-”

“Wait,” Toni says, her voice cutting cleanly through the air, like a knife through warm butter, fixing Steve with a furious, haughty look. “How is this now about me?”

Steve looks at her, full of mockery. “I’m sorry,” he says, almost innocently. “Isn’t everything?”


	22. xxii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: past attempted forced impregnation, victim blaming, past abuse.

Toni takes a step forward, her fists clenching by her side.

“Oh, my God,” James moans, covering his face in his hands.

Thor makes a face of disdain. “I thought humans were more evolved than this.”

Fury scowls. “Excuse me, did _we_ come to _your_ planet and blow stuff up?”

“Do you always give your champions such mistrust?” Thor demands.

“Are you all really that naïve?” Natasha asks, folding her arms over her chest. “SHIELD monitors potential threats.”

Bruce lifts an eyebrow. “Captain America is on a threat list?”

“Wait, you’re on that list?” Toni taunts Steve. “Are you above or below angry bees?”

Steve shakes his head, his jaw clenching taut. “I swear to God, Stark, you make one more crack-”

“What, you’ll do what?” Toni demands, grinding her teeth against the sudden rush of predatory want for a fight.

“Don’t push me,” Steve warns.

“You speak of control, yet, you court chaos,” Thor says, sharply.

Bruce snorts. “It’s his M.O., isn’t it?” he points out. “I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb.”

Fury takes a step forward. “You need to step away,” he says, lowly, the tone of his voice grim and dark.

Toni plants her hands on the counter and leans forward. “Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?”

“You know damn well why!” Steve shouts at her. “Back off!”

Toni takes a deep breath and angles her entire body to face him, coming out from behind the table. “Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me.”

“Both of you need to calm down-” James begins.

“You don’t get involved in this,” Toni snaps at him, and his mouth falls shut. “You didn’t have a word to say after all the shit he’s said to me since we met, you don’t get to say anything now. He has something he wants to say to me, some great stand he wants to make, because he finds me such a fucking objectionable person. Let him do it.” She turns to Steve, baring the razor line of her teeth. “Go ahead, Rogers, say what you want to say. I don’t need fucking bodyguard.”

“Big girl in a suit of armour,” Steve taunts, dark and dangerous. “Take that off, what are you?”

“Genius trauma survivor and small-town businesswoman,” Toni replies, firmly, folding her arms over her chest.

“Really, you’re a trauma survivor, are you?” Steve says, scathingly.

“Steve,” James says, his voice low and stern.

Steve rounds on him, looking lean and hungry like a wolf, like he’s still starving. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Buck, don’t you _see_ it?” he demands. “She’s steppin’ out on you!”

For a brief, fleeting moment, Toni doesn’t know how to react, what to even say to him. Slowly, her eyes dart to James, to see what his reaction is. Fear crawls up from her belly and slithers against her lungs, thick and cloying, like a vine wrapping around the muscle and tissue, as she waits, waits for him to react and respond.

He loves Steve Rogers, loves him like he doesn’t know how to love her, so why wouldn’t he believe him.

James surprises her by laughing, bright and hard. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“She’s sleeping with Agent Romanoff!” Steve retorts, flinging a glower at Toni.

“Oh, my God,” Toni moans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

James laughs harder.

“Yasha, this isn’t funny,” Toni snaps.

James slowly quietens, his shoulders still shaking. “You have to admit,” he chuckles. “It kind of is.”

“It really isn’t,” Natasha replies, sternly. She turns to Steve. “What makes you think that Toni and I are seeing each other?”

“Who said _seeing_?” Steve says, snidely.

“Oh, my God, we’re not doing this,” Toni says, suddenly. “Yes, Natasha and I are screwing-” Steve’s face contorts with triumph and bitter, seething hatred. “But Yasha knows that already, doesn’t he?”

James falls silent, shifting uncomfortably on his feet when Steve’s pale eyes turn on him. “Yeah,” he admits, grudgingly, awkwardly, embarrassed. “Yeah, I know already.”

“You _know_?” Steve says, sceptically.

“Yeah, I know, Steve,” James sighs. “It’s a, it’s an arrangement, I guess,” he says, awkwardly.

“What sort of arrangement-” Steve turns red.

“It’s called polyamory,” Toni offers, her voice thin with derision. “If you’re interested in finding out more about it.”

Toni half-expects when all of this is over, James will come to her and say that he wants a similar arrangement with Steve, that he wants Steve the way that she wants Natasha, that he loves Steve the way that she loves Natasha.

Toni wonders if she’ll have as much as grace and good humour than James did when she came to him, wanting to have sex with Natasha.

Steve rounds on her, with a steely edge of anger. “That doesn’t change anything. Just because… just because you’ve manipulated him into thinking that you having an affair is _okay_ , doesn’t mean that you’re some hero. In fact, I’d bet everything I have that you’re the complete opposite.”

“Oh?” Toni lifts an eyebrow.

“I just think it’s pretty insane how you two met and found each other and fell in love, you know?” Steve says, derisively. “And then, what, the two of you run away from HYDRA together? How do we know that you’re not really working for them? That this isn’t some long con, and you’re just waiting to betray him to your lords and masters?”

Toni takes a threatening step forward, her eyes clouding with black rage.

“Steve, pal, you’re crossing a line here,” James says, quietly.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

It bursts out of her like a floodgate welling up and breaking open, and she feels a pulse of loathing as she bares her teeth at him.

“You don’t know me,” she says, her mouth pulled back and locked in a snarl. “You don’t know a single _thing_ about me, about who I am, what I’ve done, what has been done to me. What, you think because you read some stupid SHIELD dossier on me, or that you listened to a few stories that your best pal told you, you’re qualified to make any sort of assumption about me, let alone the one that you just made?”

“I know that you’re a killer,” Steve says, stonily. “That you’ve killed hundreds of innocent people. I’ve seen the lists.”

Toni’s smile turns broad and nightmarish, peering at him through her dark, cat’s eyes. “So has your friend,” she says, bluntly.

Both Steve and James flinch.

She can’t bring herself to feel any guilt.

“If I’m killer, what do you think he is?” she goes on, twisting the knife just to see the way that Steve’s face turns into something strange and grotesque. “I only came to HYDRA in 1970; by that time, Yasha had been with them for, what, twenty-five years already?” she says, innocuously, like she’s scenting blood. “He was with them for _decades_. Just because he can’t remember a lot of it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. However long you might think my list is, just remember that his is longer. He was their great champion. I was just… the tagger-along.”

“Bullshit,” Steve declares.

“He took me to them when I was a baby. Do you really believe that either of us had a say in the matter?” Toni asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“No, I don’t but-”

“I didn’t ask to be your friend’s soulmate, Rogers. I was taken as a baby. He stole me from an incubator,” Toni says, bluntly.

Steve’s face turns sharp, wan, as if he didn’t quite know about that plot point.

“I look at my mother now, and I see a stranger,” she tells him, through fierce, cold eyes. “Do you have any idea what that feels like? To stare at this woman who gave birth to you, who searched for you for decades, who loves a stranger with her daughter’s face and doesn’t begrudge you the life that she should’ve had with her, and know that she is your mother but not feel what I should feel, feel the life of teething problems and nightmares and bedtime stories and sandwiches with their crusts cut off. You had that, didn’t you? A mother that loved you, a mother that you have fond memories of, even if she is dead now? I know that Yasha did. He’s told me plenty of stories about Winifred Barnes. I didn’t get any of that, did you know _that_?”

Steve remains stubbornly silent, somehow even curious of all these pieces of her that isn’t written in the file that SHIELD gave him.

“I didn’t grow up playing in the streets or going to the mall or watching movies. I grew up in a facility, where they beat me and called it training, where they used any talent I showed to their benefit and made me use it to kill people. If I faltered, I was beaten and tortured for my weakness. When I was old enough and men started to look at me a certain way, I was raped, and they said it was necessary, that it was building my fucking skillset. You think our escape was, what, was some fucking plan I’d concocted so I could get inevitably drag Yasha back to them?” she asks, her whole body trembling. “Go fuck yourself,” she says, venomously.

She directs her next look at James.

“Do you want to tell him why we left or should I?”

She gets no answer, so she looks back at Steve. “They were going to impregnate me against my will. They had this stretcher, tied my arms and my legs down, so I couldn’t get free, put my feet up in stirrups, and were planning on injecting me with fascist, Nazi sperm so that I could birth a whole, new generation of super soldiers, a whole, new generation of warriors that could serve HYDRA. And so, thinking I wanted nothing less than that, I killed all of them. I killed all the handlers, and all the technicians, and all the doctors, and all the scientists, and all the soldiers, and then, I killed our commander, and we left. That’s what happened. So,” she says, with a flat, dead look to her eyes. “You still think I’m a HYDRA plant, Rogers? Or would you like to take that back now?”

Steve’s mouth thins, but he doesn’t say a word.

“Who should I blame for what happened to me, Steve?” Toni asks, innocuously. “Should I blame your friend, who stole me as a defenceless newborn, or should I blame HYDRA for turning me into a monster and forcing me to live with all of that shit? Or would you prefer that I blame myself, because I was too weak to stop them? Or maybe, like you said, I’m as evil as they made me.”

“Maybe you are,” Steve says, his voice pitched low. “I’m not denying that you’ve been through things-”

“Oh, wow, thank you for that,” Toni says, sarcastically.

“But you don’t strike me as the hero type; you strike me as the person who’s in it for themselves,” Steve says, defiantly, his voice sharp, like flinders. “You're not the one to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire,” Toni says, plainly, without missing a beat.

Steve smiles like he’s been proven right by her. “Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, hell, you might not even be HYDRA, but you sure as hell aren’t a hero.”

“Stevie, shut the fuck up,” James hisses, dragging him away from Toni, before she does something like punch him in the face.

It would hurt, too, coming from her.

Toni takes a deep, shuddering breath, the temper boiling up inside her. “There are no _real_ heroes in this world, Rogers,” she says, her voice slipping into a taunt. “There are only people who do good things, and people who do bad things, and people who do a little bit of both. You are no hero,” she says, scathingly. “You’re a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle,” she says, her voice thin like acid.

“Toni!” James snaps at her, his face utterly livid.

Steve puffs up his chest at Toni, who just stands there, unmoving. “Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds.”

Toni laughs. “I would _kill_ you,” she says, firmly.

Thor starts giggling. “You people are so petty... and tiny.”

Toni breathes, and suddenly, her head begins to pound, starting from her temples and spreading right into the backs of her eyes. She takes a step back.

“Yeah, this is a team,” Bruce mutters under his breath, derisively.

“Agent Romanoff,” Fury cuts in, sending Bruce a nervous look. “Would you escort Dr Banner back to his-”

“Where?” Bruce demands. “You rented my room,” he points out.

Fury bites back the wince that Toni is certain rises to his face at the embarrassing reminder. “The cell was just in case-”

“In case you needed to kill me,” Bruce finishes for him. “But you can’t. I know, _I tried_!”

Everyone stops breathing at once.

Toni is left staring at Bruce, and she has the sudden urge to hang her head in shame. _I understand, I understand._

“I got low,” Bruce goes on. “I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!” he snarls, his mouth pulling back to show his teeth. “So, I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!”

Bruce bangs his fist on the table, his stare bright and furious as he looks at Natasha, in particular, his eyes hard and sharp in his face. Toni sees Natasha’s hands shake, just the slightest, by her side, the cagey look in her face and eyes, like she wants to take a step back, to flee.

Toni steps by her side, almost immediately, her fingers curling around Natasha’s wrist to keep her still. Natasha’s head jerks, but she keeps her eyes on Bruce.

“You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?” Bruce demands, his voice rising.

Natasha’s hand flies to her gun. Out of the corner of her eye, Fury’s hand is there as well.

The tension curls in every limb of Toni’s, and she waits, waits for something to happen, eyes dragging to where Bruce’s hand is around the sceptre.

“Dr Banner,” Steve says, the only voice in the room, soft and careful. “Put down the sceptre.”

Bruce looks down, and his eyes widen in surprise once he realises that he’s holding Loki’s sceptre. The computer beeps, and Toni’s lungs start functioning again. She heads for the monitor.

“Got it,” she says, peering at the screen.

Bruce puts down the sceptre and walks over to the computer. “Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my little party trick after all,” he says, mockingly.

“Have you located the Tesseract?” Thor asks, purposefully.

“I can get there faster,” Toni says, pushing herself away from the monitor and heading towards the door.

“Look, all of us…”

“The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it,” Thor protests.

Toni nears the door, and Steve’s fingers curl around her arm. “You’re not going alone!” he tells her, sharply.

Toni rounds on him. “You gonna stop me?” she taunts, leaning forward, their noses inches away from each other.

Steve smiles, hard and reckless, his pale eyes glinting. “Put on the suit, let’s find out,” he says, softly.

“I don’t need the suit to put you on your ass, old man,” Toni says, baring the razor line of her teeth.

“Put on the suit,” Steve grinds out.

“Oh, my God!” Bruce says, breathlessly, and everyone turns to him.

A rush of fire envelops the entire laboratory, and everyone is thrown in different directions. The ground crumbles underneath their feet, and Bruce and Natasha fall through. Toni is knocked forward, her feet skidding against the ground, and she makes a hard catch for Natasha’s hand.

Natasha’s eyes are wide, and her skin pale, in her face, as she falls down below, and Toni’s fingers pass right through hers.

“Natasha?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” Natasha shouts from down below.

Another shudder rocks the Helicarrier, sending Toni off her feet once more.

Steve grabs her before she can hit the ground. He pulls her to her feet, slowly, steadying her, and then, he’s got a hand around her lower back, pulling her back to the laboratory level. She’s on her hands and knees, and when she looks over, James is on the ground, eyes closed, blood leaking from a wound in his head.

“Yasha, _Yasha_!” she rasps, crawling over to him.

She lifts his head into her lap, presses two fingers against the pulse in his throat, feeling it sluggishly bleeding.

She breathes in relief. “He’s okay, he’s just unconscious,” she says, feeling a shade of warmth beside her.

She looks at Steve, and he says, sweat beading across his brow, “Put on the suit!”

“Yeah,” she gasps and clambers to her feet.

She scrambles for the door, and she trips on her feet towards the door, but he catches her by the waist, helping her out.

They run through a dim debris filled hall.

“Find engine three,” she tells him. “I’ll meet you there.”

Steve nods and peels off, while Toni approaches the storage locker where she’d kept the armour. She drags her finger over her phone, and the light brightens to life, showing her armour standing there, at the end of the room, as if it were waiting for her.

The armour climbs out of its glass case and flies over to her, surrounding her in its firm, metal casing, heavy but not compromising.

She flies out of the room.

* * *

“Toni, I’m here!”

Toni hears Steve shout, as she approaches the port side of the Helicarrier.

“Good, see what we got,” she says, her voice clipped, as she gets close to the damaged engine. She peers at the wreckage through her HUD, which picks up the framework and the data from the devastation the closer that she gets to it. “I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris.”

She flies forward, hands curling around the stuck rotors and pulling it back. She looks over at Steve.

“I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position.”

She flies into the giant cooling conductors, while Steve jumps over to the other side of the broken railing. He manages to climb up to a control panel, and he slides the console out, peering at it with no small degree of scepticism.

“What's it look like in there?” Toni asks, curiously.

“It seems to run on some form of electricity,” Steve snaps, frustration bleeding into his voice.

“Well,” Toni drawls. “You’re not wrong.”

She starts blasting broken debris off the turbine engine, hoping that if she dislodges whatever it is blocking it from moving, they can get the engine working again. It doesn’t look completely shot to hell, which is definitely a point in their favour, but it will still take some work to get it up to operational speed.

“The relays are intact,” Steve tells her. “What's our next move?”

Toni shakes her head. “Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push.”

“Well, if that thing gets up to speed, you’ll get shredded!” Steve protests.

Toni opens her mouth to retort something along the lines of _didn’t think you’d really care_ , but she manages to keep her tongue from moving too much.

She bites her lip, thinks it over, and then, an idea occurs to her.

“Then stay in the control unit and reverse polarity long enough to disengage mag-”

“Speak English!” Steve says, sharply.

Toni takes a deep breath. “See that red lever?” she asks, watching the specs of the Helicarrier in the corner of her HUD. “It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word.”

Toni flies through the gaps in the rotors, her laser cutting off a big piece of broken of motel. She jumps on top of the rotor, relieving it.

“Oh, shit!”

She hears Steve shout and the sound of gunfire ricocheting through her ears.

“Steve?” Toni calls out, insistently, her voice sharp and thin and high. “Steve, what the fuck is going on over there?”

“Barton’s men,” Steve gasps through the sound of heavy artillery. “They’re inside the Helicarrier. They’re shooting at me.”

“Fuck, _fuck_!” she snaps. “I can’t… I can’t get over to you, Steve. If I let go of this damn rotor-”

“No, don’t worry about me,” Steve grunts. “I’ve got a rifle. I can take care of it, but I’m a little way aways from the red lever.”

The dread sinks like stone into the pit of her stomach.

“Yeah, that’s going to be a problem soon,” she sighs.

“I’ll try my best,” Steve says, apologetically.

“Don’t die,” she says, her voice clipped, and she flies further into the engine, shredding the debris with her laser as she goes.

She starts pushing the rotor using the boosters from her boots, just as the Helicarrier begins to dip, precariously.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” she shouts.

“Sir, we’ve lost all power in Engine 1,” a strange, unfamiliar voice shouts in Toni’s ear.

“It’s Barton,” Fury barks. “He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?”

“This is Agent Romanoff. I copy,” Toni hears Natasha’s breathless, pained voice.

“Barton’s men are still strong. They’re making their way around the Helicarrier. We need more men!” comes Fury’s frustrated voice.

“I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it,” Toni hears James drawl.

She breathes a sigh of relief.

“Stark, we’re losing altitude!” Fury shouts.

“Yeah, I noticed,” she wheezes.

The rotors start propelling faster and faster as her boosters get more and more bright. She continuously spins Engine 3, giving it all that she has. The rotors are propelling properly and fast, and finally, the Helicarrier levels itself, and she’s breathing easier.

“Cap, I need the lever!” she shouts, the rotors slamming painfully and close to her body.

“I need a minute here!”

Toni shouts out her impatience. “Lever, _now_!”

She lets go of the rotors, and they manage to spin by themselves, but she is quickly caught in one, slipping in between the spaces between each rotor, getting chewed up, as the flat edge of the blades crack and slash against her armour, knocking the metal painfully against skin and bone.

And then, finally, a vent opens up from Engine 3, and she falls through, her armour heavily damaged, spitting sparks rather than keeping her upright. She flies towards Steve, just as one of Barton’s soldiers turns his aim onto her. She slams her shoulder against his gut, throwing him back and into a wall. She lands on her stomach and then, rolls over, breathing hard and heavy.

“Agent Coulson is down,” Fury says, suddenly, his voice crackling through the comm in her helmet.

“Paramedics are on their way.”

“They’re here,” Fury agrees.

Toni waits in bated breath.

“They called it,” Fury says, finally, and Toni closes her eyes.

She adds another name to her book of the dead.

* * *

Fury gathers Toni and Steve and James back into the briefing room, Toni walking around as if in a daze, her mind full of something like cotton candy.

“These were in Phil Coulson’s jacket,” Fury says, his voice solemn as the grave. “Guess he never did get you to sign them.”

Fury throws what looks to be Captain America trading cards out onto the table in Steve’s direction, the cards stained with blood, red and wet, which stains the glass below.

Steve jerks in his seat, staring at the cards, horrified, and finally, with his hand shaking, he reaches for the cards, picking them up.

“We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor,” Fury sighs. “I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming.”

He turns to Toni.

“Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract,” he admits without an inch of shame. “I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the _Avengers Initiative_. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes.”

Fury finishes his monologue and waits.

Toni makes a soft noise at the back of her throat and clambers to her feet, the legs of her chair screeching against the floor, when she shoves it back.

She storms out of the room.

* * *

Toni stares at the open hatch in the Helicarrier, where the cell holding Loki no longer exists. She curls her fingers around the railing, staring down at it.

Steve walks in, something that she spots out of the corner of her eye.

She waits, breathing slow and deep, but James never comes.

“Was he married?” Steve asks, suddenly.

Toni frowns. “Not that I know of, but Natasha… she said there was a, uh, cellist.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve offers. “He seemed like a good man.”

Toni looks at him, sharply. “He wasn’t my friend. I suggest you save your condolences for someone else.”

Steve scowls at her. “Are you capable of being a decent human being _at all_?”

“I’m not going to sit here and mourn an _idiot_!” Toni shouts, her voice cracking towards the edge.

“Why was he an idiot? For believing?”

“For taking Loki alone,” Toni says, slowly, like he’s an idiot.

“He was doing his job,” Steve says, softly.

“He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have...”

“Sometimes,” Steve says, heavily, but his eyes are so gentle, like he isn’t actually imagining wringing her by the throat. “There isn't a way out, Tony.”

Toni scoffs, full of derision, and storms down the steps, on her way out of the prison cell. “Right. How did that work for him?”

“Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?” Steve offers, not unkindly.

Toni wheels around and suddenly, she’s fisting one of her hands in his shirt. “We are _not_ soldiers,” she snarls.

She swallows, thickly, around the lump in her throat, remembering the Commander’s flashing eyes, the way he’d expecting her voice, her mind to dull, to become _his_.

“I am not a soldier,” she repeats, shaking down to her fingers and toes from the fury. “I am _not_.”

Steve stares down at her, and for a moment, they’re suspended, suspended in this moment, in this instant, in this minute and lifetime together, and she breathes, and he breathes, and they’re like galaxies colliding.

“Is that what they used to call you?” Steve asks, without flinching, without even abiding shame or courtesy. “HYDRA? Did they call you two their soldiers?”

Toni nods, her heart thumping hard in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, his voice unbearably soft. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said about you. That wasn’t fair. You’re a victim. You’ve been through so much.”

Toni’s lower lip quivers. “Thank you for saying that,” she says, roughly. “But I’m still not marching to Fury's fife.”

“Neither am I,” Steve agrees, almost immediately. “He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. Right now, we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list-”

Toni pulls away from him, the moment lost, and stares at the bloodstained wall, her mind working a mile a minute. “He made it personal,” she says, almost dazed.

Steve clucks his tongue. “That’s not the point.”

Toni shakes her head, slamming her fist against his chest. “That _is_ the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?”

Steve frowns. “To tear us apart.”

“He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience.”

Steve nods, slowly. “Right, I caught his act at Stuttgart.”

“Yeah, that’s just a preview, though. This is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered-”

Her eyes widen.

“Son of a _bitch_!” she shrieks.

* * *

James draws her into a hard embrace when he sees her next, burying his face in her shoulder, his knuckles dragging back and forth over the dip in her spine. He breathes, like he can’t bear to let her go, like he fears she’ll fade in his arms, and she feels warmth bubble up inside her, a dense pull in her chest, clutching at him just as hard.

When they break away, James’ eyes go over her shoulder to catch Steve’s, the two men exchanging a look, a moment between them that Toni can’t snatch for her own.

It’s jealousy that festers like an unclean wound on her body, and finally, unable to bear it, unable to bear this moment where it appears that there are three people in this relationship without her consent, without her understanding, she clears her throat.

“What happened?” she asks, concerned.

James sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What a clusterfuck,” he declares. “We got Barton’s men, but it didn’t seem to do anything. Natasha went for Barton. She knocked him out, and when he woke up, he seemed okay, no lingering mind-control or anything.”

“Nat’s okay?”

“She’s fine,” James reassures, squeezing her shoulder.

“Where is she?” Toni demands.

James points his thumb at the room behind him, and she heads straight for it, finding her on the cot, beside Barton.

“Everything okay in here?” she asks, carefully, surveying the two of them.

“We’re good,” Natasha agrees.

Toni looks at Clint, expectantly.

“I’m good, Toni,” he promises.

“Okay, that’s great. We’re leaving,” Toni declares.

Natasha frowns. “Go where?”

“Stark Tower. Can one of you two fly the jets?” Toni asks, curiously.

Clint slides to his feet. “I can,” he says, firmly.

“Great, the Avengers are back together,” Toni mutters, displeased, under her breath.


	23. xxiii.

“What the fuck do you mean by you’re going to go ahead of us?” Natasha demands, planting her hands on her hips.

Toni groans. “Be reasonable about this. My armour can fly faster than any jet you’ve got here.”

“It’s not safe,” Natasha says, stubbornly.

Toni winds her hand into Natasha’s fire-bright hair, kissing her hard on the mouth. “I don’t think we have time to be worrying about what is and what isn’t safe,” she says, solemnly.

Natasha’s eyes drag from hers over her shoulder to meet James, her face thinning, turning lean and sharp like a wolf’s. “And you’re okay with this?” she asks, her voice cold as ice.

James stares back at her, his arms folded across his chest, his lips pursed thin in displeasure. “Have you ever tried to stop her from doing something that she wants to?”

Natasha’s scowl deepens, accepting the point, and finally, she nods. “Okay, fine, _go_ , but if you don’t come back-” she lets the threat hang.

Toni squeezes her shoulder, and she turns around, only to be blocked by the indomitable wall that is James’ body right in front of her. His hands land on her shoulder, and the air grows hot and tight in her chest, her teeth worrying at her lower lip.

“She’s coming back,” James says, without taking his eyes off Toni. “Because she knows how angry we’d be if she died out there being reckless.”

Toni rolls her eyes, something soft curling in her chest. “You know, I’m not the one who strides all murder-like when I’m on a mission, with that Kalashnikov on your shoulders, and those murder thighs of yours. If that’s not reckless, I don’t know what is.”

James quirks an eyebrow up. “Murder thighs?” he asks, amused.

Toni sways forward against his body. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

James brushes her hair out of her eyes. “Don’t provoke him,” he urges, his voice low. “He’s a god, and who the fuck knows what he can do.”

“Give me a little more credit than that,” she teases. “I am capable of keeping myself alive, you know?”

James’ face hardens, and she’s suddenly sick to her stomach, wondering if she’s said the wrong thing, invoked the wrong memories, and then, his hands are cradling her face like she’s something precious, and he’s leaning down, kissing her softly on the mouth, slanting over her like he might mould himself against her body, lose himself in the pieces of her.

“You better, at least until I get there,” he tells her, his voice barely above a growl.

Toni flashes him the edge of her smile and pulls away, slinking out of the room in search of her armour.

* * *

When Toni nears the tower emblazoned with her name, she sees Selvig standing near the wormhole device, holding the Tesseract.

“Miss Antonia, I have taken off the arc reactor, but the device is already self-sustained,” JARVIS tells her, apologetically.

Toni scowls, almost instantly. “Shut it down, Dr Selvig,” she calls down.

Selvig peers up at her, his eyes shot through with a pale blue, like starlight. “It’s too late!” he calls out for her, his voice a soft, awed thing. “It can't stop now. He wants to show us something! A new universe.”

“More like the extinction of the human race,” Toni mutters.

She aims her repulsor at the machine and fires. The blow bounces back against her, the energy shattering the glass in her boots making her topple slight mid-air. Selvig falls backwards, though, away from the machine, and she stares down at her, baffled and unharmed.

“The barrier is pure energy,” JARVIS admits. “It's unbreachable. The Mark VII is not ready to be deployed.”

Toni takes a deep breath. “Maybe skip the spinning rims? We're on the clock.”

Toni lands her armour atop the balcony leading into the penthouse at the top of the tower, peering down at the lower level, where Loki stands, lazy and intrigued, a smile broadening across his sharp, lean face, showing the razor line of his teeth.

She walks into the penthouse at the same time that he does, and immediately, she heads for the bar, taking it as a shield between him and her.

“Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity,” Loki says, amused.

“No, actually, I was planning on threatening you,” she offers.

Loki’s grin remains plastered across his face. “You should have left your armour on for that,” he points out.

Toni leans her hands on the edge of the bar, stretching forwards. “Tell me, Prince, did Barton not tell you anything about me?” she asks, her voice unbearably soft. “Rest assured, I don’t need the armour to be of threat to you.”

Loki’s smile flickers just the same, but when it solidifies, it solidifies hard and reckless. “He told me that you are a killer, Antonia. Is that true?” he asks, curiously.

“Yes,” Toni says, honestly. “I am a killer.”

Loki stretches out his hands. “Then, we have that in common.”

Toni laughs, dryly. “No, no, we do not,” she says, lightly. “I killed under force, and you kill, you kill like you have orgasm every time that you put one of your daggers in their eye.”

“What an interesting metaphor,” Loki says, slyly. “But you don’t strike me as a victim, Antonia.”

“I’m not a victim,” she says, defiantly.

“Then, you liked it,” Loki retorts, his voice a knife’s blade edge.

“I liked what?” Toni asks, grinding her teeth.

“You liked killing,” Loki whispers, smoothly.

Toni bares her teeth at him. “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” she says, her voice ice-cold.

“I know that your body count on this planet is in excess of mine, yet you stand on some lofty pedestal, declaring me the dishonourable monster,” Loki points out. “Now, tell me you did not enjoy it, not even once, one particular ape that you found objectionable? You did not relish dragging your blade across his throat and watching as his lifeblood spilled down his front?”

“Many times,” Toni says, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “But that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the killing as a whole. I did what I had to do to protect myself, to protect those I love, and those I enjoyed killing, they would have hurt me. I am not going to defend myself to the likes of you?” She lets herself smile, showing just a hint of her teeth. “Now, would you like a drink?”

“You are a woman in denial, my dear Lady Antonia,” Loki clucks his tongue. “And I know well enough that you are stalling me. It won’t change anything.”

Toni waves her hand in his direction, losing her anger as easy as shedding a skin. “No, no, threatening, remember?” she says, half-amused. “Are you sure that you don’t want a drink? I’m going to have one.”

“The Chitauri are coming; nothing will change that,” Loki reminds her, angling his body to face the window. “What have I to fear?”

“The Avengers,” Toni says, simply, her fingers curling around the neck of the nearest decanter.

Loki turns to her, almost confused.

“It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team,” Toni explains, shrugging her shoulders. “ _Earth’s Mightiest Heroes_ , that type of thing.”

Loki snorts. “Yes, I’ve met them,” he says, mockingly.

Toni cracks a smile, half-hearted. “Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one.” He takes a deep breath. “But let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-god-”

She watches as Loki’s expression swiftly turns into sheer disgust at the mere mention of his brother.

“A super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend,” she continues. “A man with _breathtaking_ anger management issues; a couple of master assassins; another equally legendary super soldier and a master assassin in one single human body, and _you_ , big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them.”

“I note that you did not mention yourself in that line-up,” Loki points out.

Toni shrugs. “I’m a consultant, and I am no hero,” she says, firmly. “I just try and be a little better every day. Which is why I’m here, before the rest of them, who desperately want to scalp you, if you would believe it.”

“That was the plan,” Loki says, loftily.

Toni stares at him. “Not a great plan,” she tells him, pointedly. “When they come, and they _will_ , they'll come for you.”

From underneath the bar table, Toni’s hands scrabble for something and finally, her fingers surround something circular and thin and solid, colantotte bracelets, and she sends a prayer upward, thanking Pepper for her due diligence.

“I have an army,” Loki says, frustration bleeding into his voice for the first time since their conversation began.

She’s eating at him, she can see it.

Toni comes out from behind the counter, the bracelets chilly against her wrists. “We have a Hulk,” she retorts.

“I thought the beast had wandered off,” Loki says, smirking all the while.

“You’re missing the point,” Toni says, equally impatient. “There is no throne here, there is absolutely no version where you come out on top.”

Loki immediately scowls, his honeyed mask cracking instantly at her easy provocation, his rage like a pressure trap or a floodgate breaking open.

Toni stalks in his direction, and Loki meets her half-way, as if they’re a pair of cornered beasts, circling each other in a pit.

He has hard eyes, green as stone, and she wonders whether he’d ever been a happy boy, a happy child, whether his brother have ever seen him smile, play in joy, laugh, or whether he’d always been a hard, solemn boy, taking pleasure in pain.

An even, studious gaze from her cuts across his form, condemning him almost instantly, as she calculates his potential, his competency, whether he could actually carry this invasion out, establish himself as the lord and master of this vulnerable, naïve little planet that she sits on.

No, she would kill him first, she decides, having hard eyes of her own, seeing something of a mirror in his body. She would kill him and erase his existence from this universe, even if his brother attempted to shield him from her rage.

She must try her best to be better, and if the culmination of all of that is to burn Loki down and burn herself along with him, well, she has been ready to die for a very long time.

She watches him from beneath hooded, determined eyes. “ _Maybe_ your army comes and _maybe_ it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it,” she snarls, her lips pulling back to show the razor-sharp line of her teeth.

Loki’s face curdles in bitter, seething hatred, as he lopes towards her, raising his sceptre. “How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?”

Fear slithers against her lungs, and suddenly, Loki isn’t standing there anymore; it’s the Commander, and his beady, dark eyes, and his hands are pale, his fingers long and curved like fucking claws, and he’s reaching inside her chest, gripping the soft, wet muscle of her heart between his fingers, squeezing, in an attempt to own her,

The sharp sound of the sceptre of her arc reactor startles her out of her panicky haze, and she swallows, thickly, past the cold, hard knot at the base of her throat.

Loki’s face is cast in confusion, and then, he taps the sceptre again on her arc reactor.

Clearly, it doesn’t do what Loki wants it to.

“It should work,” Loki says, slowly, like he’s trying to prove something.

Toni takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, performance issues. You know? In fact, one out of five-”

Loki’s fingers curl around the flesh of her throat and squeezes, so hard, that her lungs start burning, her heart climbing up out of her chest.

No one has touched her like this in so many years, not since Afghanistan – she’s forgotten what it’s like to be the weaker one, the one under the hand.

Loki throws her hard, like she’s a sack of potatoes, and she hits the ground with a dull smack, her head ringing.

“JARVIS?” Toni gasps, her throat aching. “Anytime now.”

Loki growls low and seizes her again, lifting her to her feet. “You will all fall before me,” he tells her, soft and grim.

“Deploy, deploy!” she chokes out.

And then, she’s crashing through the glass window, the sting of the shards cutting right through her skin, and she can feel where the blood drips out, as she falls lower and lower, the street and the people below becoming less than pinpricks and more like actual landmarks, and then, the armour is closing around her, like the most comforting embrace, and she’s no longer falling, she’s flying, up and up and up.

And then, she’s staring Loki in the eye, his expression bemused.

“And there's one other person you pissed off!” she barks at him. “His name was Phil.”

Loki raises the sceptre, and she lets out a low sound of fury, firing her repulsor at him and sending him flying onto his ass.

A high-pitched whining noise assaults her ears, and she turns in time to see a bright blue beam shoot straight up from Selvig’s machine into the sky, through the clouds, and then, a wormhole ripple straight out from the centrepoint.

“Fuck,” she declares, breathing hard.

From the hole, the Chitauri army spill out with mangled-looking soldiers on flying chariots, energy rifles mounted on their shoulders that they use to shoot indiscriminately.

She blinks, just once, just to make sure that she’s really seeing what she’s seeing, and then, the air rushes out of her lungs.

“Right,” she sighs. “Army.”

She flies up to the portal, and from her shoulders, a miniature multiple rocket launcher, pops out and fires. Like the Jericho, several targets are taken down unlike no missile, but it barely scratches the first line of the Chitauri infantry, as thousands and thousands more come after whomever dies.

“Fuck,” she curses and then, flies back towards the city.

“Toni?” Natasha calls out through the comm.

“Nat, where are you?” Toni demands.

“We're heading north east; we should be here soon,” Natasha says, quickly.

Toni scowls. “What, did you stop for drive-thru? Swing up _Park_ , I'm gonna lay 'em out for you.”

She banks around the corner of her tower, a trail of Chitauri on her heel, and sees Thor and Loki fighting atop the balcony. She swoops down the street, and one of the Chitauri following her crashes hard into the pavement. Flying up, she puts them in the full view of the approaching Quinjet and then, watches as the machine gun slips out of the base of the Quinjet and shoots the rest of Toni’s trail.

“Miss Antonia, we have more incoming,” JARVIS tells her.

“Fine,” Toni sighs. “Let’s keep them occupied.”

She heads back up to the portal, but then, a giant leviathan, scaled and gleaming in the dappled sunlight, flies out of the rip in space, with hundreds of soldiers hanging onto the edge.

Toni stares at it for a moment, and she’s dizzy, dizzy with bemusement.

From both sides, Chitauri soldiers slip off and attach themselves to the sides of the buildings, sliding down. Some crash into these buildings and begin firing from their new vaunted positions with their energy rifles at innocent people, who scream and run, turning into a mob.

“Uh, Toni, are you seeing this?” James asks, his voice strangled.

“Oh, I’m seeing, but I’m still working on believing,” she replies, her voice high and thin in her own ears. “Where’s Bruce? Has he shown up yet?”

“Banner?” Steve asks, sceptically.

Toni waves it off – he’ll come, she knows he will.

“Just keep me posted,” she says, loftily. “J, find me a soft spot.”

She flies quietly behind and parallel with the leviathan. She swerves around a building and faces the leviathan, pulling out his miniature multiple rocket launcher, firing straight at its metal face. The leviathan roars in impatience and fury and sets its sights on her.

“We, uh, we got his attention,” she says, sweat beading on the back of her neck. “What the hell is Step 2?”

She flies away with a shriek, just as the leviathan snaps its terrifying jaw full of sharp teeth, each incisor like a giant sword, at her.

“What’s the story upstairs?” Steve asks, curiously.

“The powers surrounding the cube is impenetrable,” Thor says, morosely.

“Thor is right. We have to deal with these guys first,” she chimes in.

“How do we do this?” Natasha asks, uneasily.

“As a team.”

There is a scathing, belligerent retort on the tip of her tongue, but somehow, Toni manages to stifle himself.

“I have unfinished business with Loki,” Thor protests.

Clint chuckles hard. “Yeah? Get in line,” he says, coldly.

“Save it,” Steve says, sharply, and all the chatter cuts off. “Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him these things could run wild. We got Toni up top, she's gonna need us-”

Everyone suddenly stops talking, and Toni just stops flying, lingering in the middle of the sky, waiting for someone to say something, _anything_.

“Excuse me?” she says, shrilly.

“Sorry, Toni,” Natasha says, immediately. “Forgot that you weren’t here.”

“Clearly,” Toni snaps. “What the fuck is going on down here?”

“We have him, Toni,” James tells her, his voice soft.

“Banner?” Toni clarifies.

“Just like you said,” he agrees.

Toni sighs, watching as the leviathan spots her, following impatiently.

“Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you,” she declares and comes out from behind a building, spotting the rest of them gathered on the ground.

The leviathan roars its own entrance, demolishing half the building in its onward progress.

“I... I don't see how that's a party...” Natasha says, dazed.

When she gets low enough, she can see how wan and bloodless the rest of them are.

The leviathan follows her, having already decided that she is the one it most wants to kill, barrelling down the street like a freight train that keeps building and building its intensity.

“Dr Banner,” Steve calls out, taking a step forward, just as Bruce begins to walk towards the monster, in drab, dirty clothing, without flinching the slightest. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Bruce has a half-smile on his face. “That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry.”

And then, Bruce’s body, streaked with green, starts to swell and stretch and harden, turning into the Hulk, and then, the Hulk slams his fist right into the leviathan, crushing it under his knuckles. The leviathan warps under his fist, and flips over due to the pressure, and Toni’s surging forward, extending her arm out, and a rocket fires, hitting the soft spot in what she thinks is the leviathan’s spine, blowing it completely away, as it roars in pain.

Grey meat and metal catch fire and fall down like hail during a windstorm, sizzling as they hit the pavement.

From above, the soldiers, clinging onto the edges of buildings, watch the storm of body parts, yanking off their masks and screaming at them in rage.

Toni descends, joining the circle that the Avengers make, and when she looks back, thousands more of the Chitauri soldiers and even more leviathans fly out of the wormhole.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she moans.

“Guys,” Natasha says, urgently.

“Call it, Cap,” Toni says, promptly.

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath. “Alright, listen up,” he says, his voice firm and commanding, stepping into his role like he’s stepping into a second skin. “Until we can close that portal up there, our main mission here is containment. Bucky, Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or your turn it to ash,” he orders.

Clint eyes Toni, speculatively, his eyes dragging over the figure that she makes in her armour, even and studious. “Wanna give us a lift?” he asks, hopefully.

Toni smirks, hidden by her helmet. “Right, better clench up, Legolas,” she teases.

She grabs him and James by the scruff of their necks, like they’re nothing more than a cat, and lifts Clint first up to a building, letting him perch on the edge of a roof. He salutes to her quickly, before aiming his bow and firing an arrow at the leviathan that passes by.

She drops James on the other side of the next block.

“You okay here?” she clarifies in mid-air.

“I’m fine,” James soothes, and without even looking, he’s thrusting out his handgun and shooting a nearby flying Chitauri soldier between the eyes, knocking him off his glider. “I’m good here. You go.”

“You sure?” Toni asks, unsure.

James has already turned his attention the scope of his sniper’s rifle. He flashes her a thumbs-up and a strained smile.

“You go be a hero, _malina moya_.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says, gleefully. “He calls you _malina moya_?”

“Yasha!” Toni snaps.

James grins bright and proud at her, and it’s almost like nothing’s changed, like Steve Rogers is still dead, and there aren’t aliens trying to kill them, and Toni isn’t terrified that once the adrenaline of battle is over, she is going to lose Yasha wholly and absolutely.

“I’m sorry, _malina moya_ ,” he says, cheekily. “I didn’t know anyone was listening.”

“I feel like I don’t want to know this, but what does… what does _malina moya_ mean?” Steve asks, stumbling over the pronunciation of a Russian word he doesn’t know.

“He’s calling her his raspberry,” Natasha says, and everyone can hear the broad smile in her voice.

“Why do you call her your raspberry?” Clint asks, curiously.

James grins, shamelessly, never taking his eyes off Toni. “Because a raspberry is pink, and that’s the same colour as her-”

“Yasha!” Toni shrieks. “Stop talking,” she warns.

He fires the sniper rifle, and then, angles his head towards her. “Or what?” he challenges.

Toni narrows her eyes. “Or I won’t suck your cock ever again,” she replies in Russian.

Clint and Natasha choke on the comm.

“What, what did she say?” Steve demands.

“You don’t want to know, Cap,” Clint says, dryly. “Believe me, you do not want to know.”

“Ever?” James asks, pouting.

“Ever,” Toni agrees.

“Okay, this conversation is over,” James declares, returning his attention back to his scope.

“Good, because, in case you guys hadn’t realised, aliens are invading New York,” Steve snaps.

“Oh, calm your farm, Red, White and Blue,” Toni says, rolling her eyes. “We’ve got things handled up here.”

Her gauntlet smooths over James’ long hair, memorising the feel and weight of him under her hand just in case.

 _Just in case_ , she promises herself.

Steve continues on with his orders. “Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You've got the lightning. Light the bastards up. You and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk… _smash_.”

“Stark, you’ve got a lot of strings sticking to your tail,” Clint comments from his perch.

“Just try and keep them off the streets,” Toni instructs.

“Well, they can't bank worth a damn. Find a tight corner,” he offers.

Toni accepts the point. “I will roger that.”

She leads the string of Chitauri on her heel, leading them towards tight corners, so that Clint can fire arrow upon arrow, exploding all of them. She keeps leading whatever stragglers are left under tunnels, through open parking garages, and when she looks back, none are left.

“Nice call,” she agrees. “What else you got?”

“Well, Thor's taking on a squadron down on 6th.”

Toni sticks out her lower lip in a pout. “And he didn’t invite me?”

* * *

Toni lands on the ground, shooting any other Chitauri rides that follow her. She makes her way down to where Steve is fighting off more of the soldiers, with just his shield in his hand (she feels this abrupt, desperate urge to hand him a gun). When she lands, it’s almost like there’s some strange mind-meld between them, as if they’ve done this a hundred times before and this is just muscle memory reacting, and she’s raising her gauntlet at the same time that he’s raising his shield.

She fires her gauntlet, and it hits the flat of the shield with a dull, clanging sound, and Steve shifts his grip, swinging the shield in an arc, so that the beam from her gauntlets disintegrates the Chitauri surrounding them.

Once they’re dead, she takes a deep breath, removing the helmet from her head, so she can shake out her sweat-damp braid.

“Here,” she says, handing him a handgun from her armour.

Steve just stares at it in the palm of her hand. “I’m not really a gun type of guy,” he says, awkwardly.

Toni scowls. “You carry a shield the size of a dinner plate,” she says, coldly. “It doesn’t cover your legs. If I were going to kill you, I would get you to throw your shield and then, go for your legs. Take the fucking gun.”

Steve watches her carefully and then, finally, he takes it from her hand. “Thank you,” he says, honestly.

A blotchy pink flush runs through her skin, and she looks away, knowing that he can see her, how he makes her react.

“Think nothing of it,” she says, awkwardly.

She flies off.

“Thank you for that,” James says, quietly. “For making an effort.”

Toni huffs. “He’s the one with the problem, Yasha,” she reminds him, wearily. “He’s made that very clear.”

 _And you didn’t actually say anything in my defence_ , she wants to lay at his feet.

“I know,” James replies. “I’ll… we should have a talk, all of us.”

Toni takes a deep breath, dread sinking low in her belly like it’s made of stone.

This is it, this is the point, this is where it ends for her, this quasi-contented life she’d built for herself.

“Yeah, we should have a talk,” she says, vaguely.

She flies right next to one of the leviathans and aims her laser booster at it.

It barely even dents the beast.

“Miss Antonia, we will lose power before you cut through that shell,” JARVIS tells her.

She flies up ahead, facing the oncoming monster with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“JARVIS, you ever hear the tale of Jonah?”

“I would not consider him a role model,” JARVIS protests, sounding much like the first Jarvis had (it makes her chest hurt in a metaphysical way, somehow worse than the arc reactor in her chest).

She flies towards the leviathan, unleashing her entire arsenal, as the leviathan opens its gaping, gleaming maw. She flies through, cutting through meat and metal and everything that she can see pulsing on the inside, and manages to burst out the other end in a terrible, fiery cacophony, but it knocks out the thrusters in her boots and she hits the pavement below, rolling down, until she finally comes to a stop, the wind knocked out of her.

When she opens her eyes, she lets out an overwhelming sigh, as a small band of Chitauri soldiers rush towards her, holding out their rifles. She climbs to her feet, and her repulsors, complaining all the while, manage to take care of the few soldiers, but it results in Toni balancing herself on the hood of the car, breathing hard, her chest hurting.

“Stark, you hearing me?”

“What?” Toni demands, breathlessly. “You might not have realised, Fury, but we’re all a little busy here.”

“We have a missile headed straight for the city,” Fury says, simply, his voice sharp like flinders.

Toni swallows past the knot in her throat, rearing with awareness. “How long?” she asks, coldly.

“Three minutes, at best,” Fury replies, briskly. “Stay low and wipe out the missile.”

The comm shuts off, and she fights off the next band of soldiers that come at her, and then, the next band, and the next band, and she dreads the idea of leaving it like this, with the lines of Chitauri so strong and ever-coming, but if she doesn’t get the hell out of here now, in the next fifteen seconds, there might not be a New York to save.

“J, put everything we got into the thrusters!” she shouts.

“I just did,” JARVIS advises her.

She throws herself upwards into the sky and heads towards the Manhattan Bridge, able to track the heat signature of the missile on her HUD.

“I can close it!” Natasha cries out. “Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!’

“Do it!” Steve shouts, quickly.

“No, wait,” Toni interjects, the adrenaline running flush through her skin.

“Stark, these things are still coming!” Steve protests.

A scowl starts to edge up over her mouth. “I got a nuke coming in,” she tells him, her pulse a heavy thud in her ears. “It's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it,” she muses.

Just above the highline of the bridge, she sees the pinprick of the missile growing broader and broader, until she can fly over it and come from behind, gripping it between her hands.

Her arms strained, and she lets out a shout, but finally, she manages to wrench it off course. Steering it from behind, she accelerates quickly, flying straight up into sky, towards the portal.

“Toni,” Steve says, his voice soft and steady in her ear. “You know that’s a one-way trip?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Toni snarls and shuts off the comm, switching it onto a private line. “Save the rest for return, J.”


	24. xxiv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: explicit sexual content.

“Miss Antonia,” JARVIS says, gently. “Shall I call Sergeant Barnes and Agent Romanoff?”

Toni sighs, her head pounding between her ears. “Yeah, might as well.” The comm runs through. “Yasha, Nat,” she says, careful and weighty.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” James rages in her ear, his voice grim and blameworthy.

“I… there’s no one else to do this,” she whispers.

“I’m actually in agreement with James,” Natasha snaps, sharply. “This is dumb, Toni. Don’t do this, please,” her voice wobbles just the slightest at the edge, “ _please_ , don’t do this.”

Natasha has already lost so much; Toni will just be a long line of people that she will lose.

And for James, well, Toni will just be another disappointment, another notch on his gravestone.

“I love you,” is the first thing that Toni manages to get off her tongue, all at once violent and miserable. “I love both of you very much. I’m sorry we didn’t get to have the life we were supposed to. There’s so much I wanted to do with you. But don’t forget, _never forget_ how much I loved you.”

“Don’t go,” James moans. “Don’t go, _malina moya_. Stay,” he pleads, painful and terrible. “ _Stay._ Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone in this world, not after everything that we’ve already survived. We’re just beginning our lives together; there’s so much left for us. We can’t end that, not now.”

The bile is in her throat, sour and bitter. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I have to do this. I’m the _only one_ who can do this. Please understand that.”

“I understand,” Natasha says, softly, and Toni can hear the tears in her voice, but the steadiness.

Natasha is braver than James, she realises; Natasha can let her go, can let her die, and survive beyond it; James wouldn’t, a part of him would die with her if she died.

“Thank you for loving me,” Natasha continues, her voice strangely breathless. “It was… it was a blessing to be loved by you, Antonia Stark. Thank you for inviting me into your life, into your heart,” she says, her composure slipping. “And I love you too.”

“You never have to thank me for anything,” Toni says, roughly.

The wormhole looms ahead, and Toni pushes on.

“I hate you for this,” James declares. “I hate you for being brave and kind and good, because they don’t deserve you, none of them do, even I don’t,” he says, bitterly. “And I would have done this for you in a heartbeat. I would save you every time, remember?”

“I know, _I know_.”

“I love you, _Antonia moya_ ,” James tells her, dark and full of promise. “You are the other half of my soul, you know that, right?”

Toni swallows hard, a nervous knot forming in her belly. “I know.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” James whispers to her, in that steady, inexorable way of his, even if she can hear his heart breaking. “I love you now, and even when you’re dead and I’m dead and this whole fucking universe is rotting, I will love you.”

And then, she’s passing through the wormhole, and the air dies around her, and there’s nothing but silence, silence and the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. Ice crawls like vines and veins full of blood around her armour, turning it to stone, but Toni, Toni can do nothing but stare in horror, at the armada that awaits her, awaits the small little planet beneath her.

The sight opens a yawning pit in her gut, even as she starts to grow cold, and her lungs fill with lead in her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.

She is the last stand, the last shield against all of it, and she knows it now, she knows it as she has ever known any fact of this universe.

It sets in her bones, just to be sure.

She lets go of the missile, and it slips from her grip, drifting forward, until it collides with the armada’s mothership, setting it on fire.

There can be fire in space, she hadn’t realised.

It rains down on her and spreads throughout her body, a violent, painful, perfect sight of hundreds and thousands and millions of beings dying.

Even at the end, Antonia Margaret Stark, the Engineer, she is a bringer of death.

A pulse throbs between her legs at the golden-orange destruction she has left in her wake, and then, as her heart beats one last time, she falls.

* * *

Toni awakes to the sound of a mighty roar, and it’s with a shrill scream and her heart and lungs in her throat that her eyes snap open, scrabbling for purchase, fending off some black shadow that wants her.

“Toni! Toni, it’s me!”

She’s still fighting, her eyes absent and unseeing, and then, familiar hands grasp her by the shoulders.

“ _Antonia moya_ , it’s me,” James says, earnestly.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and she finally sees him, hovering over her, his hair pulled back in a bun, the beginnings of stubble around his jaw, and his pale, pale eyes staring down at her, hope shining through them.

“Yasha?” she sobs out. “Yasha?”

And then, she’s throwing herself into his arms, uncaring if the armour pulls against her muscles in protest.

“It’s okay, _malina moya_ ,” James murmurs, his voice soft, as his hand smooths back her hair. “It’s okay, I have you, you’re safe now. You’re alive.” He presses his lips to her hair. “You came back to me,” he mutters in furious Russian.

She hadn’t even realised her head had been freed from the helmet.

She pulls back, swallowing past the lump in her throat. “What the hell just happened?” She looks around at those gathered around her: Steve and Thor and the Hulk. “Please tell me that no one kissed me.” She drags her knuckles down James’ cheek. “Except you, honey, you can kiss me.”

James twists his head and kisses her knuckles.

Steve stares at her, his brow damp, and he’s staring at her like he’s never seen anything or anyone like her before. It’s a strange look, a look that makes the blood beat hot under her skin, makes something throb in kind in between her legs, and she takes a deep breath, as a smile blooms across his handsome face, one that makes her nerves tangle as taut as a drumhead.

An eternity passes between the two of them, and then, the moment snaps.

“We won,” he tells her, gently.

Toni sags against James, who holds her up, an arm braced around her shoulders, nudging his nose against her temple.

“Alright,” she says, heavily. “Hey, alright, good job, guys!” she waves a hand at them, dismissively. “Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day,” she wheezes out. “Have you ever tried shawarma?” she asks, suddenly.

James’ chuckle rumbles against her entire body.

“I’m sorry, what?” Steve asks, still giving her that impossible, undefinable look.

She’s pretty sure that you’re not supposed to look like that at your best friend’s (potentially ex-lover) soulmate.

Toni leans her head back against James’ shoulder. “There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

Thor looks up at Stark Tower. “We’re not finished yet.”

There’s a stifling pause while everyone comprehends what he’s talking about, and then, Toni sighs.

“Loki,” she says, her voice ugly and frustrated and at the edge of tears. “And then, shawarma after.”

* * *

Loki becomes SHIELD’s problem, and they take him away, even if there’s a sour taste at the back of Toni’s mouth with the idea of letting SHIELD get their hands on someone like Loki, with everything that he can do.

But she lets it go, content to lean back against Natasha, who has a steady arm wrapped around Toni, keeping her up, her head knocked against hers.

Natasha hadn’t said much when she came up to the tower, grimy with dirt but still breathing, even if she’d still climbed into space without anything protecting her but for that single suit of armour, but she’d pulled her into a tight embrace, clutching at her hard enough to make her lungs ache. She’d buried her face in Toni’s neck, the hollow of her throat where her pulse beats, and Toni had felt her skin grow wet. And then, she’d pulled away, smiled as if there’d never been tears in her eyes, and continued to hold her like she might fade in Natasha’s arms.

They go to shawarma after, and Toni finds she actually hates the taste of the meat, but considering it was her idea, she has to keep up appearances. But James catches her out, like he knows what she’s thinking even before the thought pops up in her mind. He doesn’t tell the rest of them, of course, just smiles that secret smile of his that makes something soft and fond curl in the empty spaces between each rib.

After shawarma, they go home.

Thor takes Loki with him back to Asgard, along with the Tesseract, and Toni bids good riddance to the thing, even if it likely saved her life back in 2010. Clint goes away for a while, in an attempt to get over what Loki did to him. Natasha returns to SHIELD, but she’s a frequent visitor at Toni and James’ house, as she always is, and Toni often finds her sleeping a mission off in their room (they’d migrated from the separate rooms, many months ago, and now, James sleeps the best when he’s sleeping with both Natasha and Toni), with her heels or her boots by the door, half-undressed, on top of the sheets.

On those days, when Toni returns from the gym or climbs out of her garage after finishing all the repairs she’d promised (in the years, it had evolved from fixing toaster ovens and microwaves to the DVD player and the flat-screen television, showing, she supposed, the development of human wants and needs), she finds Natasha like that and she drags a blanket to cover her, smoothing her palm over Natasha’s cheek.

Steve, on the other hand, Steve is lost.

Natasha offers him a place with SHIELD, but Steve’s mouth grows tight, unsure of how to answer but knowing that SHIELD isn’t the place for him.

Before she even knows what she’s doing, Toni is offering for him to come and live with them.

“We have a room,” she blurts out before she second-guesses herself.

Steve looks at her in surprise.

Toni takes a deep, steadying breath and tangles her hand with James’, so he knows. “You should come and stay with us,” she says, patiently. “We have a room. You can stay with us.”

“You’re sure?” Steve asks, his voice uncertain, but she doesn’t miss the longing look he sends James’ way.

“I’m sure,” she says.

* * *

So, Steve Rogers comes to live with them.

It’s fine, it really is.

Steve is neat and quiet, and she often finds him asking to help with the cooking, even though Toni very rarely touches the stove if only to make her world-famous lasagne, and when he does, he boils things that she wouldn’t normally boil.

She does love the boiled potatoes, though; those are a starchy goodness.

Things become awkward, sooner or later.

Firstly, she often finds Steve and James sitting on the couch in his Bucky mode, trading memories, swapping stories, all of the _remember that time when we_ s, and the references that Toni doesn’t understand, because one, she didn’t live in the 1940s, and two, because she didn’t exactly have the apple pie childhood that everyone else seemed to have.

Toni doesn’t know how to react in those scenarios. She just sort of lingers in the doorway, wondering if they’ll notice her, but when they don’t, she moves on, an empty sensation growing in her chest.

Secondly, she often finds Steve staring at her, staring at her like he stared at her back after she came out of the wormhole, alive, and she finds herself staring at him, tracking his eyes, his smiles, his teeth, the muscle definition in his arms, the way he moves his body, like he doesn’t quite fit into his skin, even after all of these years.

And then, she hates herself for it, hates herself for noticing, because no one ever taught her to be greedy.

But when she looks away, when she tries so hard to stop looking, that empty sensation grows.

Thirdly, there is a new level of awkwardness permeating the house.

Like the time that Toni came out of the shower in just her towel and ran into Steve and the towel came straight off, pooling at her feet, and Steve looked his fill for the entirety of a moment before he was directing his gaze elsewhere, the colour high in his cheeks.

She was a little put-out he didn’t look further, frankly.

With his eyes firmly pinned on the uneventful ceiling, and he reached down, grappling for the towel, and handed it to her.

Toni accepted it gratefully, wrapping it around her still-damp body and tucking it underneath her arms.

“I need to apologise to you,” Steve says, swallowing hard, with his eyes still elsewhere.

“If you’re going to apologise to me, you should probably be looking at me,” she offers.

Steve’s eyes drag down to meet hers, and he turns redder, if it could even be possible. “You’re right,” he says, his voice rough. “I should be looking at you. I’m sorry for the way I treated you on the Helicarrier.”

“You should be; you were an ass,” Toni replies, easily.

Steve sighs. “I know. I want to blame the sceptre or that I’d just woken up seventy years later in a whole new world with my previously-dead best friend alive and hurt and…” he shakes his head. “It’s not an excuse, and I shouldn’t have taken out what was going on with me on you. That wasn’t fair.”

“I accept your apology. I said a fair few things myself,” Toni says, firmly.

“Bucky… he’s told me a few things about what-” Steve cuts himself off, as if he’s afraid of offending her. His voice lowers. “About what you went through with HYDRA. I’m sorry,” he looks actually sick to his stomach, his face wan and bloodless, the more he thinks about it, whatever it is that he talked with James about. “I’m sorry that I ever thought that you were like-”

He cuts himself off again, a sickly-looking flush to his skin.

“HYDRA are evil bastards,” Toni declares without flinching. “I hate them, and you hate them, and we shouldn’t waste another breath on them, but yes, if you ever accuse me of being their spy or their agent or anything to do with them willingly, I will most likely drop-kick you in the throat.”

Steve nods, quickly. “I understand, and you would be completely entitled to.” His throat flexes. “I’m also sorry for insinuating that you were cheating on Bucky with Agent Romanoff.”

“He does know about us,” Toni says, smoothly. “She even sleeps in the same bed as us.”

Steve chews on his lower lip. “How does that work exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Toni sighs. “Let’s go into the lounge.”

For some reason, both of them forget that she’s still wearing a towel.

They end up on the couch.

“So, James and I are together, we’re in a relationship, and Natasha and I are together, and we’re in a relationship, and Natasha and James are in a relationship, but they’re not together,” Toni explains.

“I… don’t quite understand,” Steve says, his brow furrowing.

“Okay, well, um, so James and I will have sex, and Natasha and I will have sex, but Natasha and James don’t have sex.”

Steve’s skin is blotchy pink, as if he hadn’t realised that it comes down to that. “Oh,” he says, lamely.

“I think they call it a queerplatonic relationship, what Natasha and James have. More than a friendship, but not quite romantic.” Toni worries her teeth on her lower lip. “Did you have any more questions?”

“No, I just…” Steve grins, half-heartedly. “I’m just glad I understand a little more now.” He hesitates for an agonising moment. “And Agent Romanoff, when she’s here, she sleeps-”

“She sleeps in our bed,” Toni finishes for him.

Steve nods. “Okay.”

They lapse into silence, and Toni is the first to raise her voice.

“Can I ask you a question, Steve?” she asks, carefully.

“Of course.”

“Are you in love with James?” she asks, bluntly.

Steve just stares at her, and then, slowly, fear crawls onto his face, slithering into his eyes, and his hands are shaking.

“It’s okay,” she soothes. “It’s okay, because I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I know you’re in love with him; I know that he’s in love with you, that the two of you have been in love with each other for a very long time. I just… I suppose I need to know.”

“I…” Steve flounders for words, and then, he drops his eyes to his lap. “I wouldn’t do anything… I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t make a move on him or anything. I know he’s with you, that he’s happy with you, and I wouldn’t dream of ruining that,” he says, quietly.

Toni stares at him, and after decades with HYDRA and the intervening years in small-town suburbia, she’s become quite used to detecting bullshit and lies.

She doesn’t think that Steve is lying.

“You were the reason why he broke free of their control, the twice I saw it, you know,” she tells him.

Steve startles, an odd little noise escaping him. “What?”

“In 1986, we were sent to kill Peggy-”

Steve’s face is immediately horrified.

“But when I was going through the file our handlers gave us, telling him things, mission notes, you know, and then, I mentioned your name and he…” She looks away. “It was like he was Bucky Barnes, just for a moment, but it was enough.”

Steve closes his eyes like what she’s saying is utterly painful.

“And then, uh, it was around 1993, I think. We were in Brooklyn, and we were following a target, and we saw these children playing Captain America in the streets, and then… yeah, he lost it again,” Toni muses. “My point being is that the two of you clearly love each other, and you have not had that conversation with each other yet. I think you should, and when you have, you come back to me and you can tell me again whether anything has changed because you’re here now,” she says, solemnly.

Maybe she is ultimately a coward, because she can’t bear to have that conversation with James herself.

* * *

Toni’s flicking through her tablet on the bed, when James storms through the bedroom.

“Did you tell Steve to make a move on me?” James demands.

Toni looks up. “No,” she says, slowly.

“Then, why did I have the strangest conversation with him I have ever had,” James accuses.

Toni shrugs. “Maybe because he’s a strange person?” she offers.

James scowls. “Toni,” he says, a warning edge to his voice.

Toni sighs and puts her tablet down. “Okay, look, we might have had a conversation earlier, and he told me that he was in love with you, so I said he should have a conversation with you about it,” she explains.

James gives her a flinty look, and then, he folds his arms over her chest. “Did you trade me to him?”

“It wasn’t really a trade-”

“Oh, my God,” James says, gaping at her in disbelief. “What the _fuck_ , Toni?”

“You’re in love with him!” she says, slipping off the bed, her voice high and thin. “I can see it, plain as day, and he’s in love with you.”

“So what?” James asks, throwing his hands in the air.

“Because you’re in love with him,” Toni says, softly.

“You’re in love with Natasha, but when you came to me and you told me that, I didn’t offer to trade you to her,” James growls.

“You’re right, you didn’t. But… you,” she looks away. “I see how you are with him, I saw how you were within him on that Helicarrier. You love him; he’s your world. You didn’t defend me to him one _bit_ , Yasha, and yes, we’ve apologised to each other and we’ve worked our shit out, but that _hurt_ ,” she says, her voice painful and aching. “ _You_ hurt me. It _hurt_. And it hurts worse because now I know that he loves you, and you love him. With Natasha… I would never have done that. I would never have thrown you over for her. I can’t choose, and I wouldn’t, and maybe I feel like you did choose between Steve and I, and I think I know what that choice was.”

“Toni, _carevna_ ,” James says, his voice agonised.

He opens his mouth and then closes it, clearly losing the nerve. He drags his hand over his face and lets out a soft little noise.

“Fuck, I really made a mess of things, didn’t I?” he finally mutters.

Toni makes a face like she’s not particularly going to disagree.

“I’m sorry for the Helicarrier,” James says, approaching her, slowly, with his hands extended. “I… Steve said some fucked-up shit to you, and I should’ve told him to shut the fuck up, and I didn’t. I just stayed silent. I made you think like I don’t have your back, that I wouldn’t save you every time, and that was not okay. That was…” he looks down at his feet. “I was cruel and unfair. I am sorry.”

Toni swallows past the lump in her throat, breathing easier than she’s breathed in a while – she hadn’t realised how much she’d internalised it.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Toni,” James says, roughly. “I’m sorry, but don’t think… don’t think I did that because I don’t love you or that I’ve always been waiting for Steve or something. That’s not _true_ , Toni. God, I’d… I wouldn’t even be… _fuck_ , I’d be dead in a ditch somewhere if it wasn’t for you,” he insists, his voice bordering on madness.

“Are you in love with him, Yasha?” she asks, patiently, relying on adrenaline alone to get her through this conversation.

“I do love him,” he says, honestly.

Toni lifts her chin, bravely. “Like you love me? More? Less? Better? Worse? I’d like to know where I stand.”

“Not more, not less, not better, not worse, just different,” James answers, soberly.

Toni blinks and shakes her head, feeling her eyes stinging. “And are you going to leave me for him?” she asks, without flinching.

She startles, when his hand cradles her jaw, smoothing a thumb over her high cheekbone.

“Never,” he promises.

“But you still want him,” she says, knowingly.

“I do,” James admits.

“So… does that mean you want something like the arrangement that we have with Natasha?” Toni asks, hesitantly.

James swallows hard and looks away. “You’re not ready for that, are you?”

Toni closes her eyes, tests the image of James and Steve tangled up in each other in a bed, naked, muscles gleaming, and she feels a curl of heat in her belly, but more than anything, she feels the sickly little sensation of jealousy.

“No,” she says, slowly. “No, I’m not ready for that.”

James smiles down at her, brushes his thumb over her cheekbone. “Then, nothing will happen between Steve and me.”

Toni peers up at him. “I’m sorry,” she blurts out, regret flooding through her entire body.

James frowns. “Why are you sorry, _malina moya_?” he asks, confused.

“I… you were so accepting of Natasha and me, and now, it’s like…” she swallows hard. “Now, it’s like I’m the selfish, jealous bitch and-”

“Don’t do that,” James says, sternly. “I am not in any way dissatisfied because you don’t feel comfortable with me seeing Steve, understand? I lived seventy years without him, and I will live however many more I need to, because I love you, and I love you as much as I have ever loved anyone. Yeah?”

Toni leans into his bulk. “Yeah,” she agrees, softly.

* * *

It’s six months later, when she’s having sex with James, riding him like a racehorse, her hands planted on his shoulders, her teeth in her lower lip, as she focuses on the stretch and pressure of his cock inside her small, curvy body.

She rocks down, and suddenly, the image of him below her is morphing into another body, one taller, broader, paler, with golden hair and a cleanshaven face, and longer, more artistic hands.

She comes just like that, shaking and shuddering around him, and she feels him spill inside her moments later. She tips off him, landing on the bed beside him, and covers her face with her arm, breathing hard.

“Oh, my God.”

James turns onto his side. “What’s wrong?” he asks, softly, brushing a strand of sweat-damp hair out of her face.

“I don’t know if I want to tell you,” she says, faintly.

“Hey,” James shuffles in closer, draping an arm over her waist. “Hey, you can tell me everything, you know that.”

“No, if I tell you this, you might never forgive me, or you might never look at me the same way again,” Toni mutters

James leans in and brushes his mouth against the curve of her bare shoulder. “That’s never going to happen,” he says, confidently.

Toni turns her head into her pillow. “Never say never,” she says, her voice muffled by the cotton pillowcase.

James sighs, and the arm around her waist tightens as he draws her into his body. “Come on, _malina moya_ ,” he coaxes. “Tell me.”

Toni closes her eyes, wills away her heartbeat pumping like a hummingbird’s wings. “I might have thought of someone else when I came,” she says, quickly.

James’ hand stills, and for a brief instant, Toni fears that he’s actually stopped breathing.

“Yasha,” she says, uncertainly.

James clears his throat. “Could I have more explanation?”

“Steve,” she whispers. “Steve, I thought of Steve.”

“Oh,” he says, lamely.

Toni closes her eyes. “I’m gonna need more than that,” she mutters.

James’ hand slides underneath her tank (they’d been in such a rush that Toni had only taken her shorts and her underwear off, and James had pulled his sweats down enough to free his cock, and she’d sunk on top of him) to trail his nails across her abdomen, making her clench.

“What was he doing?” he asks, suddenly.

Toni twists her head to face him, sceptically.

“What?” he asks, defensively.

“He wasn’t doing anything,” she says, slowly. “I just sort of looked down at you, and he was underneath him.”

James pouts, a little disappointed. “Seriously?”

“What were you expecting?” Toni asks, gaping at him in disbelief.

“I don’t know, some kinky fantasy,” James says, shrugging.

Toni twists in his arms so that she’s facing him. “What sort of kinky fantasy?” she asks, curiously.

James drags his knuckles down the length of her arm, making goosebumps pebble across her skin. “Well, he has a lot of muscles.”

Toni shudders. “Yes, I know. I’ve noticed.”

“I had this idea of him lifting you up, your legs around his waist, fucking you up against the wall,” he says, his voice lowering to a bare growl. “He’s big enough that he’d cover you completely.”

Toni whines low in her throat.

James smiles a shark’s smile. “You like that, do you, _carevna_?”

Toni chews on her lower lip and nods.

“Do you want me to go on?”

Toni nods again, rubbing her thighs together.

James hums. “I thought about you on this bed, touching yourself, not quite undressed, in this flimsy little tank,” he tugs on the spaghetti strap, letting it slide down her arm, her breasts starting to slip out of the thin cotton. “Your underwear, your little hand inside, rubbing yourself.”

“No fingers?” Toni asks, breathlessly, shuffling closer to him, so that she can press her entire body against his, rubbing her hard nipples against his chest hair.

“Not yet,” James says, softly. “And then, the door opens.”

Toni grins. “Ooh,” she teases.

“And you know, Steve… we did a lot back then, but he’s never had a girl,” James tells her. “Never done more than kissed one, but he likes them.”

“Oh, yeah?”

James grins. “He’s got a thing about bullies, and he’d shove his fist into the balls of a guy who thought he could do what he wanted with a girl, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have those thoughts himself. He liked their soft skin, their breasts, how long their legs were,” he clears his throat. “and then, well, I had my fair share of stories that I shared with him.”

Toni leans back, her brow furrowed. “And he was okay with that?” she asks, curiously. “The fact that you slept with other girls?”

James shrugs. “It was a different time.” His smile turns painful at the edges. “It wasn’t like we could be together without getting beat up in the streets or thrown in jail. So, yeah, he knew that we had to keep up appearances, and I looked like this, so…”

“And Steve struggled to get dates,” Toni finishes, quietly.

James nods. “But that didn’t mean he didn’t like the girls, didn’t imagine what they looked like, felt like.”

“And you think he’d like me?” Toni asks, uncertainly, chewing on her lower lip.

James looks down at her body, lingers on the full swell of her breasts, the curve of her muscled thighs. “Yeah, doll, I think he’d love you,” he murmurs.

“And if he walked in on me touching myself…” she trails off, pointedly.

James’ smile broadens. “He’d get all shy, at first, thinking he’d walked in on something he shouldn’t have, but you’d be nice, wouldn’t you, _malina moya_? You’d invite him in?”

Toni nods, breathing in slowly.

“You’d let him watch for a while,” James goes on. “You’d tease him. You’d slide those straps down, let those perfect tits of yours spill out, so he could see your nipples, how hard they are, how soft you are. He’d just stand there, though, and you’d keep going. You’d shuck your shorts and underwear off, spread your legs, and let him see all of you, wouldn’t you?”

Toni feels like a dog panting for a bone, but nods nonetheless.

“You’d sit like that for a while, even if he had those blue, blue eyes of his on that pretty, pink pussy of yours, watching it flutter open, as if needing a cock inside, _his_ cock. And then, you’d ask him to take his clothes off. He’d hesitate at first, wanting to be sure that he was doing something that you really wanted him to do. He’s sweet like that, our Stevie, and then, you’d see his cock-”

Toni makes a small noise of satisfaction. “Have you seen it?” she asks, curiously.

James chuckles low in his throat, dragging his fingers through her hair. “You mean his cock?”

Toni nods.

“I have,” James murmurs. “I mean, we shared an apartment, showers, and it’s a thing of beauty. Long and pale and pretty, even when he was small.”

Toni swallows thickly, and his fingers work their way between her legs, the tips nudging against the lips of her sex, parting them and sliding inside to the knuckle, where she’s already wet from their earlier activities.

“He’s a virgin, you know,” James says, casually, swiping his thumb over her clit to make her jump. “He’s never been with a girl or a boy. So, you’d have to be soft with him, careful, even when he’s watching you. He wouldn’t even know what to do with someone like you. He’d just stare. But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like it if he stared?”

Toni nods and gasps, when his fingers rub against her insides, making her clench around him, painfully.

“You’d crook those pretty little fingers at him, though, eventually, let him crawl onto that bed for you. You’d kiss him real good, until those lips were pink and swollen. You’d let him crawl over to you with all those muscles. He’d cover you completely.”

James goes breathless with his own words.

“You’d feel him hard between your legs, pressing up against your pussy. You’d welcome him inside, wouldn’t you?”

“I would, I would,” she moans, her fingers circling around his wrist, as he thrusts his fingers inside her, again and again.

“He’d be slow at first, getting used to the feeling,” he murmurs. “But then, he wouldn’t be able to take it, how hot and wet you are-”

He growls the words out low in his throat, and the sound of his fingers inside her squelches throughout the room, making the colour rise to her skin.

He takes a deep breath. “He wouldn’t be able to take it, so he’d start pounding inside you, and you’d take it all, you’d take it all, because you might be one of the few women on this planet who can take it, take _him_. He’d keep fucking you and fucking you until your eyes rolled back into your head, and you’d come around him, shaking like you couldn’t stop, fluttering around him, milking all of his come.”

Toni cries out, high and needy, and imagining Steve’s weight on top of her, she comes, pulsing hard around his fingers, like she’d squeeze the digits right off his hand, and sinks back against the bed, when she’s done, breathing hard and heavy.

After a moment, she smacks him on the chest, and he laughs, sucking his fingers into his mouth.

“Now, I have to go and talk to him,” she tells him, rolling off the bed to find her cotton robe, which she ties around herself.

“Wait, now?” James asks, incredulously.

Toni folds her hands on her hips. “Yes, now; when else would I do it?”

“We were in the middle of having sex,” James protests.

Toni stares down at him. “We _finished_ having sex,” she corrects.

“You had three orgasms, and I only had two,” James points out. “Doesn’t that seem a little uneven to you?”

Toni shrugs. “I’ll owe you one.”

James mulls it over, and then nods. “Okay, let’s do it, then.” He turns onto his side. “Let me know how it goes.”

“Wow, I might have the most low-maintenance soulmate in this entire universe,” she mutters, on her way out of the bedroom.

It’s a short walk from their bedroom downstairs to the guest room, and she opens the door without talking. Steve yelps from where he’s lying under the sheets, the quilt dragged up to his ribcage, staring at her with big eyes.

“Toni… Toni, what are you _doing_?”

“Were you touching yourself?” Toni asks, honestly.

“No!” Steve protests, his face flaming.

“It’s alright, you know. It’s a normal part of someone’s sexual existence,” Toni waves off, dismissively. “I need to talk to you.”

Steve stares at her. “Can’t this wait until morning?” he asks, his voice a little high and thin.

“No,” Toni says, honestly. “I want to have sex with you, and I’m okay with James having sex with you as well, and I was wondering if you would like to join our relationship?”

Steve blinks slow and wide. “I’m sorry, is this how people date in the twenty-first century?”

“Potentially; I don’t really have much experience,” Toni says. “My experience is limited to James and Natasha. Oh, shit,” she whispers. “Was I supposed to check with Natasha before I did this?”

Steve shrugs. “Probably.”

Toni’s shoulders slump. “Fuck,” she declares. “Hold that thought.”

She races from Steve’s bedroom up to hers and James’ and crawls on top of him, settling on his stomach.

“How did it go?” James asks, curiously.

“I forgot to talk to Natasha before I went to Steve,” Toni says, quickly.

James looks at her. “Oh, yeah, I can see why that would be a problem,” he muses.

Toni smacks him on the chest. “You’re having this realisation _now_?”

“Hey, I told you to wait until morning,” James retorts.

“Okay, I’m gonna go and talk to Natasha,” Toni says, decisively, and climbs off James, heading towards the door.

James sits up in the bed. “How can you talk to Natasha? Isn’t she in Guatemala?”

Toni lifts an eyebrow. “What, you think I don’t have my ways of reaching my girlfriend on a super-secret spy mission?” she scoffs. “Who do you think I am exactly?”

“Sorry I underestimated you,” James says, dryly.


	25. xxv.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've come to the final chapter.
> 
> I just want to thank everyone for being on this long ride with me, almost 200K later. You have all been so great and supportive!
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: explicit sexual content.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, Miss Antonia?”

“Can you please connect to Natasha, using the discrete network?”

“Of course, miss.”

After a moment, Natasha’s face flashes on the screen.

“Toni?” Natasha asks, worriedly. “ _Milaya moya_ , is something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Toni says, breezily.

Natasha’s brow furrows, her mouth turning down at the corners. “So, you interrupted me on a top-secret mission in South America because, what, you were bored?” she asks, half-amused, half-displeased.

Toni winces. “No, actually, I did have something to talk to you about.”

“Which is?” Natasha pushes.

Toni takes a deep, steadying breath. “We would like to add Steve to our relationship.”

To her credit, the change to Natasha’s expression is marginal at best, as if she’d been expecting something along these lines.

“Really?” Natasha asks, without an inch of surprise. “You’ve changed your tune.”

Toni closes her eyes. “I might have had an epiphany.”

Natasha starts to smile. “Really?”

“Yes,” Toni says, haughtily. “I didn’t realise I actually liked him so much.”

Natasha’s smile turns fond. “I did.”

Toni frowns. “You did?”

“You two had a very… antagonistic beginning,” Natasha hedges. “But Steve found it hard to take his eyes off you, and you were watching him constantly too. The two of you still do that now; you just… blush and look away and tease each other. It’s cute.”

“I didn’t think you found things cute.”

“I find _you_ cute,” Natasha corrects.

“You didn’t answer my initial question,” Toni says, quietly. “Would you be okay with that, me adding Steve to our relationship?”

“What did Steve say?” Natasha asks, curiously.

Toni flushes. “I didn’t really give him a chance to answer.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Of course you didn’t,” she sighs.

“I didn’t think it’d be proper to go to him without talking to you first. You’re just as much a part of this relationship as any of us are.”

Natasha’s face brightens until it’s unbearably soft. “Yeah?” she asks, gently.

“Yeah,” Toni soothes.

“I’m okay with it,” Natasha says, slowly. “I’ve been watching the three of you toe around each other for a while now; I’m just glad you got your heads out of your asses.”

“And you won’t feel… you know, you won’t feel-”

“I love James,” Natasha replies, easily. “And I am already quite fond of Steve. I imagine I could easily love him too, but frankly, _milaya moya_ , you are the only person I want to fuck, and I won’t feel any less because you’re sleeping with three people, and I am only sleeping with one.”

“You might not always feel that way,” Toni warns.

Natasha shrugs. “And if that’s true, we will have a conversation, a proper, adult conversation about where we all stand. But for now, if you want to go and talk to Steve, I have no objections.” Her smile turns wicked. “As long as you promise to tell me what happens afterwards.”

“You are a horndog,” Toni declares.

“You know it.”

There’s a loud sound, like a bullet coming into contact with a wall, and Natasha looks over, her attention diverted from the camera, her face hardening.

“I’ve got to go; they’re shooting at us,” she says, apologetically.

“Kick some ass,” Toni offers.

Natasha grins. “You know it.”

The monitor blinks away, and Toni sighs, leaning back in her chair.

“God, J, what do I do now?”

“Perhaps this would be a good time for you to speak with Captain Rogers,” JARVIS replies. “He is, after all, waiting outside.”

Toni startles. “What?” she says, sceptically.

“Captain Rogers is waiting outside, on the stairs. He seems quite concerned for you, especially with the way that you ran out of his bedroom,” JARVIS explains.

“Yeah, that was pretty bad, wasn’t it?” Toni asks to no one in particular. “Can you let him inside?”

The door slides open with a slick little click, and Steve steps over the threshold, not for the first time staring at the rest of her workshop with awe.

“Hi, Toni,” he says, shyly.

“Hi, Steve.”

“You just ran out of there, so I thought I should come and see…” he trails off. “I did try and talk to Bucky, but he thought it would be best if I came to you and well…”

“I meant what I said,” Toni says, before she loses her nerve. “Before, when I was in your bedroom, I meant what I said. I do want you to be part of this relationship, the one that I have with Natasha and Yasha.”

“And they’re... they’re okay with it, both of them?” Steve asks, awkwardly.

Toni notes that he doesn’t immediately say no.

“Natasha… Natasha doesn’t have sex with Yasha, did I tell you that?” Toni asks.

“No,” Steve says, slowly.

“Yeah, so, the way that our relationship works is that Natasha has sex with me, but not with Yasha, and Yasha has sex with me, but not with her. Natasha is not interested in having sex with you. She only likes women, but she likes you well enough to include you in the relationship. As for Yasha, well, I think we both know where his preferences lie.”

Steve blushes, but he nods. “Yeah, I think we do.”

“So, I know that you love him, and that he loves you, and I’m not expecting you to declare that you do love me, or even if you have feelings for me, but I was wondering if you did see yourself being able to-”

“I do have feelings for you,” Steve says, suddenly.

Toni blinks at him, having not expected that answer.

“What?” she says, dubiously.

Steve sighs, his face turning almost purple. “Toni, you can’t have _not_ realised that I keep… well, I keep staring at you, right?” he asks, awkwardly.

“Yeah, but that could just be because you find me interesting or-”

“It’s because I have feelings for you,” he says, firmly. “It’s why I make you all that food, the sweet things, because you have a sweet tooth. It’s why, when I find you sleeping on the couch, I cover you with the blanket. It’s why I let you take charge of my… what did you call it, my introduction into the twenty-first century. It’s why I leave flowers in your room, the ones from the garden. It’s why I blush so much when I’m around you. It’s because… it’s because I think you’re beautiful, and you’re kind, and you’re strong and probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. I don’t…” he clears his throat. “I just, I guess, I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know that I did mean that apology a couple of months ago. I know… I know we had a complicated beginning, and I’m sorry for the terrible things I said to you, I really am, so I’m surprised that you even want me in the first place.”

“You apologised. I got over it a long time ago,” she says, honestly.

Steve’s face cracks wide open in a smile. “I’m glad,” he says, shyly.

“So, does that mean… so, you’re willing to be a part of us?” Toni asks, just as shyly.

“Yeah,” Steve says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’d… I’d really like to be a part of you, what you and Nat and Bucky have, if you’ll let me?”

Toni swallows past the lump in her throat. “I’m glad,” she whispers.

“You know, I said that I had feelings for you, but you didn’t say whether, you know, you had the same feelings or-”

Toni surges forward and kisses him hard on the mouth, leaning up on her toes and draping her arms around his shoulders. Steve startles underneath her mouth, just for a moment, as if he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing. He wraps his arms around her waist, drawing him against his body.

He’s taller than James, broader than him, paler than him, and when her hands grope at his muscles, it’s with hungry, hungry curiosity.

She breaks away from him, her hands still planted on his shoulder, dragging her teeth over her swollen lower lip. His pale blue eyes, the colour of a summer storm, dart down, following the motion of her teeth, and they darken, his pupils blowing wide.

“Of course I have feelings for you,” she tells him, almost coyly. “I can’t stop looking at you, Steve. I can’t take my eyes off you. Of course I want you. I want you for everything, I want you inside me.”

Steve groans, a raw, punched-out noise from the back of his throat, and he pulls her back into his arms.

She’s happy enough to go, pressing her forehead against his collarbone, letting him sway her back and forth.

It reminds her of the rhythm of music.

“Do you like to dance?” she asks, suddenly.

When she looks up, Steve’s brow is furrowed. “I didn’t… I mean, I never really learned, I…” he turns pink again. “No one ever wanted to dance with me… before,” he says, lamely.

“I’ll teach you,” she says, confidently. “And once I’ve done that, you can take me out dancing. It’s a different sort of dancing than the one that you’re used to, though. We’ll have to go to a special place for that sort of dancing.”

“What sort of dancing do they have now?” Steve asks, curiously.

Toni smiles, wickedly. She presses up against him, so that he can feel the curve of her breasts against his chest, her firm, muscled thighs against his, wrapping her arms around him.

“You’d have to hold me like this,” she murmurs. “Real close, like we can’t be torn apart.”

Steve swallows hard. “This seems improper,” he says, lightly.

“Darling, everything about dancing in this time is completely improper,” she tells him, slyly. “JARVIS, play _Naughty Girl_.”

 _Naughty Girl_ ’s chorus begins to play through the speakers in the workshop, and Steve looks like a deer caught in headlights, when she starts swaying with him, pressed up against him like she is, grinding up against him, until she feel the weight of his hard cock pressed up against her belly.

“Oh, God,” he groans. “You’re gonna be the death of me, aren’t you?”

Toni looks up at him through her eyelashes. “You’ll love it, I promise.”

“Whoa, is this performance free-for-all or for select clientele?”

Toni and Steve turn in the direction of the voice, only to find James leaning against the doorframe of the workshop’s entrance, radiating smugness.

Steve is absolutely purple with embarrassment, looking as if he’d hide into some alcove and never come out if he could.

“Shut up,” she tells him.

“I was enjoying the show.”

Toni sniffs. “That’s because we are both beautiful people.”

James smiles, slow. “I know,” he says, fond and warm. “Maybe we should take this upstairs, if you two have worked your shit out.”

Toni looks at Steve. “I don’t know, Steve. Have we worked our shit out?”

Steve chews on his lower lip, and then, his arm clamps down around her waist like a band of steel, yanking her against his body, and his mouth comes down on hers with bruising force, stealing the air right out of her lungs.

When he pulls away, she’s dazed, dizzy with it, the blood hot in her face, and maybe the only thing keeping her up is his arm around her waist.

“Yeah, I think we worked our shit out,” Steve says, smugly.

* * *

They don’t have sex immediately, which is something that Toni is frankly surprised about – she’s never been one to wait to satiate her desires, especially after she was _allowed_ to satiate those desires without fear of retribution or punishment.

No, it’s three weeks after Steve joins their relationship that Toni, Steve and Bucky have full, penetrative sex. In the weeks preceding that night, of course, they experiment, and Toni finds out that Steve is an avid cunnilingus giver, absolutely loves to put his head between her thighs and lick at her like she’s some sweet, ice-cream treat.

She also finds out that he’s an absolute top where Bucky’s concerned, bearing the smaller man down to the bed, with that hungry, blown look in his eyes, and wrecking him with his fingers spearing through his body alone.

It’s why Toni is practically shuddering with anticipation on the night that they decide to go all the way. They decide that the night should be all about Steve. He’s with Toni, first, climbing on top of her body, after he’s fingered her to one orgasm and licked her out to another one, and she’s wrapped her hand around his big, hard cock and jerked him off until he’s come in her hand. He nudges his cock against her cunt, as she opens up for him, parting like a wet, ripe peach.

She’s so wet that he’s able to slide right until the base of his cock, his scratchy, blonde pubic hair rubbing up against the insides of her thighs. Toni grunts, almost scrabbling away from his cock, and her hand curls around the bedpost, wrapping her legs around his waist. The pressure, the sensation is unbearable, and he thrusts shallow first, his face already twisted in a newfound pleasure.

She touches his cheek, flattening her palm against it, and his eyes flicker open, a dark sheen across them, absent and unfocused before they centre on her.

“You good?” she asks, carefully.

Steve bites his lip, nodding, a shudder rippling through his body. “I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he murmurs, his voice unbearably soft.

“Like a wet, hot vice wrapped around your cock,” James agrees, kneeling beside their tangled bodies.

He cradles Steve’s jaw in one hand and turns his head, so that he can kiss Steve, licking his tongue against Steve’s teeth. Toni clenches her insides hard around him, and Steve breaks away from James with a rough, punched-out groan.

He starts thrusting, slow, getting used to the sensation, the look in his eyes determined, as he catalogues each and every one of her expressions, finding out what she likes and loves and screams for. He starts thrusting harder, then, when she claws her nails down his back, and he finally remembers that she’s no ordinary woman, no ordinary human, that she can take what he can take and come back just as strong.

Steve leans down and buries his face in her neck, mouthing where her pulse throbs fast and wild, and Toni clutches at him with both arms, her fingers threading into his golden hair, nails scraping against his scalp. He thrusts harder now, each shove dragging the air out of his lungs.

She licks her lips, rubbing up against him like a cat, feline and delirious. Her fingers bite into his shoulders tight enough to bruise, and then, she’s vaulting up and to the side, bearing Steve down to the mattress with her perched in his lap.

James narrowly misses being tossed off the bed.

She shifts restlessly in Steve’s lap and watches as he drags those blue eyes of his down the length of her, lingering on the heavy curve of her breasts, her hard nipples, her flat belly and the place between her legs where their bodies are joined.

They resume a familiar pace, pushing and pulling, grasping and grabbing, and Toni’s pitching her hips down onto him again and again, taking him into her body, rising and falling.

A hand that doesn’t belong to either of them twines its way between her legs, and there’s a firm, warm chest pressing up against her back, so close that she can hear the beat of James’ heart against the notches of her spine. His arm drapes around her shoulders, his forearm pressing up against her throat, while the fingers on his other hand rub slow, determined circles around her hard, little clit.

“Shit,” she gasps and comes, clenching around him uncontrollably, shuddering right down to her fingers and toes.

She almost falls off Steve’s body, but James keeps her pinned there, Steve still thrusting into her despite her being an oversensitive mess, and her cunt is hovering on the edge of pain-pleasure, the sensation too sweet, too much to be an ordinary orgasm. Steve is grunting with each thrust, his hands on her hips, his eyes on the image that she and James makes together, and then, he’s groaning long and hard, surging up one, pressing up against her tight and hard and coming, spilling inside her, drawing one last orgasm from her, one that she wasn’t even expecting, the sensations too much for her to ignore, which ends in a scream, lights dancing behind her ears.

“Fuck,” she declares, as James finally loosens his arms from her body and lets her fall onto the slightly sweaty bedsheets, panting hard and heavy. She pats him on the chest, groping at one of Steve’s full pectorals. “Good, so good. You might be the most competent virgin I have-” she pauses before she finishes the sentence. “Oh, well, I’ve never actually had sex with a virgin before so maybe that’s the wrong comparison,” she muses.

Steve twists his head and kisses the side of her head, firmly. “Coming has never felt like that before,” he says, dazed.

“Her cunt is like magic,” James agrees.

Steve flushes blotchy pink. “Bucky,” he scolds. “Don’t be so-”

Toni turns onto her side, planting her hand on the curve of her hip. “You’ve literally had your penis in my vagina; you don’t get to be shy now,” she says, coyly.

Steve groans and covers his face with his hand. “You guys are so embarrassing,” he grumbles.

He moans, suddenly, and when Toni looks down, she realises that James is kneeling between Steve’s legs, his big, deft hand wrapped around Steve’s cock, stroking him to full hardness.

Toni watches with interest.

“Bucky, _shit_ ,” Steve hisses.

When Steve is fully hard, James’ hand drops from his cock and leans back on his heels.

“I want you to fuck me from behind,” he declares.

Steve’s pupils bloom. “Yeah?” he rasps.

James smiles, slow and provocatively. “Uh-huh,” he replies.

Steve’s throat flexes and he sits up, getting onto his knees, while James turns around and bends over, on his hands and knees.

Thankfully, Toni had invested in a much bigger bed when Natasha had started sleeping in their room with them.

Toni sits up. “Are you already stretched?” she asks, curiously.

James grins. “Took care of myself while he was eating you out,” he says, casually.

Toni bites her lip and her fingers find one of her nipples, pinching it hard to find that sharp stab of pleasure that goes right down to her cunt. “That is supremely hot.”

Steve has his hand on his cock, and he’s nudging himself between James’ legs, finding his rim, open and stretched and leaking lube, pressing in slowly, the hole much tighter than Toni’s cunt. Steve trembles until he slides in, fully seated, and then exhales loud and hard, his hands squeezing at James’ hip.

James is no less affected, his hands scrabbling against the sheets, his jaw a rough, taut line. Steve starts thrusting hard, as if they’d done this half a hundred times before and this is just an easy, unthinking rhythm that he’s falling into, even if Toni knows differently (maybe, this is how it has to between the three of them; with Toni, every sensation is new and dramatic; with James, everything is familiar and comfortable).

An idea sparks in Toni and she’s crawling forward, until she’s climbing off the bed and she’s on her knees at the foot of it, her head level with James’ cock, which is bobbing hard against his abdomen, leaving damp streaks of pre-come against his belly.

“What are you doing?” James manages to ask, his body rocking with every thrust of Steve’s cock behind him.

Toni’s eyes drag over the contrast of colour from where Steve’s pale, milk-smooth hands are biting into James’ tanned hips, and she leans forward, angling her mouth around the head of James’ cock.

James shouts, when her warm, wet mouth closes around him, and his hands find their way into her hair, pulling against the scalp with as much force as he knows she likes.

“Fuck, Toni,” he mutters, peering down at her, his eyes blown black in their sockets. “Where the fuck did you get this idea from?”

Toni pulls off his cock with a wet pop. “Your cock looked so lonely,” she teases. “I just thought I’d give it a hand, or rather, a mouth.”

Before he can reply, she’s sucking him into her mouth again, dragging her tongue over the vein on the underside, her hand wrapping around the lower half of his cock, working it alongside her mouth. Her tongue traces aimless patterns across his skin, chasing the salty taste of him, warm and full in his mouth, before she runs it teasingly along the seam of his cock.

It doesn’t take James much, with her mouth on his cock and Steve’s cock in his arse, before he’s coming, his hand clenching tight against her scalp for a brief moment, and then he’s shuddering, practically seizing, and he pulses in his mouth, thick and slow.

Toni winds her hand between her legs, finds her cunt, empty and grasping and leaking come, circles her thumb around her clit, and she comes quickly, already on the edge, already so sensitive, making an undignified sound of pleasure around his cock, and she rubs against the fluttering aftershocks of her insides.

James’ cock slips out from her mouth, and he leans back against Steve’s chest, as Steve comes as well, grunting hard and setting his teeth on the tendon between James’ neck and shoulder, leaving marks on his skin.

“Fuck,” James says, definitively. “Fuck, I love both of you.”

Toni climbs to her feet, a pleasant stretch in her thighs, and climbs back onto the bed.

“You’re sweet,” she tells him, as she curls up against Steve’s body, her head on his chest, her ear pressed against his heart so that she can hear it beat.

Steve’s arms settle around her, just as James sinks onto the mattress beside him, on his stomach, his arm splayed across Steve’s stomach.

“So, that was sex, huh?” Steve muses out loud.

Toni laughs against his pectoral.

* * *

Four days later, Natasha returns.

They’re having lunch, Toni and Steve and Bucky, with Maria and Rhodey and Pepper and Sharon, when she comes home. This isn’t the first time that Steve has met Sharon, and he’d startled when Toni had surreptitiously told him her relationship to Peggy, the same way he’d startled when Toni had told him about being Peggy’s goddaughter, but thankfully, even as Toni feared, because theirs was not a perfect relationship as none is, he hadn’t given Sharon one of those soft, maudlin looks of his, or Toni might have killed him out of jealousy (she was only half-joking when she said that).

Natasha strolls through the open door, and that’s how Toni knows that this is her home.

She dumps her heels at the door and strides barefoot into the kitchen, her stomach grumbling when she catches sight of massive pans full of Toni’s lasagne on the wide dining table.

“Please tell me there’s wine,” she declares.

She leans down and brushes her mouth against Toni’s, softly, before proceeding to James and smoothing a hand over James’ long hair, as she’s done a hundred times over, and then repeating the gesture with Steve, who stares up at her in surprise and almost in awe, as if a healthy part of him had doubted her acceptance, her want for this as well.

Natasha sits down in an empty chair beside Pepper and Toni and grabs a porcelain plate, her eyes gleaming as she piles up a generous helping of Toni’s lasagne onto it, liberally pouring grated cheese.

Toni takes a look around at her family, at those she loves most in the world, bar Peggy who couldn’t be with them now, and she presses her hand against her thumping heart.

She sees the Commander, in that moment, lingering at the edges of her vision, as he is wont to do, even after all of these years.

She remembers how he smiled at her, just before she killed him, how he said, _you’ve done me proud, Engineer_ , how he promised that she was his, like it was unequivocal fact, like he was a stain, a disease she could never cut out of her body.

Steve pours another full glass of wine before handing it to her, while James and Natasha fondly bicker on either side of her about the advantages of zucchini in lasagne and whether it actually ruins the dish.

She looks at them and thinks, _I am not yours, I am theirs, forever more._

She blinks, and the Commander is gone, faded from her eye as if he never existed.

She smiles and takes the glass of wine from Steve.

The bickering grows louder, with Steve now slipping into the conversation and giving his opinion on zucchini and whether it belongs in lasagne or not.

Her lips close around the rim of the wine glass, and it tastes sweet-bitter, burning the back of her throat.

It tastes like her victory march.


End file.
